For my Christine
by Gustav Eli
Summary: A re-imagining, written for a dear, dear friend.  Characters are based  loosely  on Susan Kay's interpretations.  Chapters will be posted as they are finalized.
1. Prelude

"It's been weeks, you know."

It wasn't a question. Nadir stood resolutely at the door, his wiry frame leaned neatly to one side, rather like a book left on a shelf without a partner to hold it perfectly upright. Erik didn't look up from his writing. He didn't need to, he knew the man's face without looking... the very tone of the accusatory statement communicating with absolute clarity the solemness of his expression: the disappointed gaze, the furrowed brow and displeased frown.

"I've... been busy," Erik said distractedly, shoving a pile of papers under a nearby cup. Nadir noticed with unease that it was one of several teacups that joined dirty glasses, stacks of newspapers. The room was in a complete state of disarray.

Nadir folded his arms across his chest, "For someone who spends such a great majority of time pining for normalcy, you do not often give yourself the opportunity to live as a whole person."

This caught Erik's attention, causing him to turn his head ever so slightly.

"We're not meant to live so alone," Nadir continued gently. "It makes it hard to remind us that we're human."

Erik sighed, folding the slender fingers of one hand on top of the other. His lips formed together in a thin line. How strange that Nadir would come now to lecture him on the finer points of being _human_. On a day he had spent mostly in quiet contemplation, hearing the echoes of words spoken by those long since in their graves.

Feeling, as he did, that his very humanity was slipping away.

The back of his tongue tasted sour, he wondered how long it had been since he last ate, how long he'd been working. Recently the novelty of opera operations had worn surprisingly thin. No sooner than the carpets had been laid had he felt the first tug of restlessness. With the construction completed, the decorating done, and now several productions come and gone, Erik desperately needed a creative outlet. He'd taken to ... _interfering_ with the management of the company, just harmless little suggestive gestures... trifles really. Simple illusions and a few artfully worded letters and he had acquired himself a salary and a hobby. Now even that task, which had kept him busy for months and months, was losing its allure. This had made Nadir nervous, somehow. In the past year the man had been visiting more frequently, dropping in unexpectedly, having the audacity to _suggest_ other activities. Trying to keep _him_ busy.

The _nerve_.

Erik had been forced to remove him bodily from his house, with a stern command not to return. A command Nadir had clearly chosen to ignore. The masked man wondered wryly what, exactly, he had done to Nadir to make him continue coming back through those doors, even under admittedly vague threats. Perhaps the man had a masochistic streak, returning to experience this fresh torture over and over again. For wasn't that what this was? Forced into the employ of a man such as he? A _thing_? He knew the man's thoughts as well as he knew his own. Knew that seeing him here, gaunt and pale and _haunted_ caused Nadir's guts to gnaw and knot within him.

"The mind that hears only the echo of its own thoughts has no inspiration," Nadir said, as if reciting a line from a story he struggled to remember, "And a heart that answers no other will wither and shrink away."

A burst of staccato laughter escaped Erik's lips, a harsh and cruel sound. With a dismissive muttering noise, he turned back to his work.

"The chorus auditions are today," Nadir said formally, straightening himself up and brushing dust from the sleeve of his jacket, "or are you no longer interested in the opera, as well?"

Erik's eyes closed for a moment, as if the words stung him. "My friend," he said gently, swiveling in his seat.

And found he was now alone.

With a resigned sigh, he rose from his seat and made his way toward the bath. If one were going to visit polite society, one should probably dress the part.


	2. Chapter 1

The acrid and cloying smell of mildew, neglect and decay lightly masked by mouldering candles left too long in dusty wall snifters, was at once familiar and disconcerting. His footfalls muted on the worn stone steps, he ascended from the underbelly of the monstrous opera house. Here, in the catacombs below, Erik had made his home and conducted his life in a state of relative peace for nearly a decade. Each year since his arrival the air seemed a little colder, the stone a little more moist. Even thought the building was still considered new, the phosphorous moss had begun its unyielding overthrow of the grey masonry below. Slimy and pungent, the plant would eventually overtake the entire cavernous underside - turning the very walls and floors into a living mass, devouring it whole. Yet for now the stone persisted, staying firm and unyielding beneath the lichenous growth. All the phlegm-colored halls managed to affect was a most unpleasant cough, one that rattled deep in his lungs when he laid in his bed, one he was certain would develop into pneumonia yearly as he grew older. One that would most likely herald the end of his otherwise wretched life; and that end, he had no doubt, would come about within these same clammy corridors.

Here he had built his glory, and his tomb.

Erik paused for a moment at the archway that signaled he was leaving the safety of his underworld, and entering the opulence of the opera house above. Had it truly been weeks? Recently he'd noticed that hours, days slipped by without much notice. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen natural light. Or the last time he'd spoken aloud before Nadir's interruption earlier that morning.

He'd lost himself, somewhere in there.

The corridor he chose almost mechanically, giving no thought to where he was going - or what he would do if he encountered another soul - was blissfully, mercifully empty. He could vaguely hear the plaintive strains of a lone violin warming up, distracted murmurs of a small crowd. The tension in the building was palpable, mixing with his own odd sense of foreboding. For something had made him uneasy, something he noticed almost immediately upon waking, thrashing blindly into the dark in the last throes of some dream he couldn't manage to quite recall. Something in the air, like a storm you could smell before the sky even began to darken. It settled in him now, deep in his chest. Electric. _Heavy._

He felt positively haunted.

_Something is about to change._

Erik stopped himself just short of bursting into ridiculous laughter, but the thought lingered. _Something is about to change. _Ludicrous. He wasn't one to list "premonition" among his varied talents.

The box was empty, the curtains drawn. He took a moment to collect his thoughts as the tension on the stage below turned to a dull roar of activity. The woodwinds rose in a shrill wave before quieting back down, only a single flute continuing its wild, high-pitched trilling. He could hear the maestro tapping furtively. No one was paying him any attention.

_"Un peu de silence, s'il vous plait!"_ The stern voice rang out. "_Merci. _If the ladies would please step to the left... pardon, _stage_ left, giving the gentlemen the right side of the stage."

This was such a silly practice. Every spring, when they cast the upcoming season, they forced this mockery of an "audition." It was a showcase for the true talent, and puerile humiliation for the mediocre. Everyone who had any dreams or aspirations of singing forced onto the stage together, pitting years of experience with amateur infants freshly birthed from the conservatories. Barbaric, really. He knew full well they had cast most of the shows already, this was simply masturbatory and loathsome.

If he hadn't feared drawing attention to himself, he would have drummed his fingers on the chair arm in frustration. _Why_ did Nadir feel it was so important that he attend this, exactly?

"Step forward, state your name and the name of the piece you have prepared," came the stern direction. Erik's head lolled against the back of the seat. _Three auditions, _he told himself. Then he would make his exit.


	3. Chapter 2

_"Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup."_

The loud click that signaled the extinguishing of the lobby lights echoed through the empty theater. Here the lamps had long grown cold, the ensemble tucked back into their dormitories and private apartments. The management had enjoyed a celebratory bottle of wine before departing loudly through the front doors. The floors had been swept, the seats dusted, the stage wiped clean. Everything was now silent and dark.

In box five, Erik sat slumped in his seat, where he had remained now for nearly five hours. The threat of discovery, nor the discomfort of his position were enough to rouse him from his silent paralysis, for he was now a man possessed.

That voice. My god. _That voice._

The first two auditions had been abysmal. Young girls with voices already too strained by years of constant mismanaged use, grown harsh and ragged from poor training and overindulgences in diet and drink. They would remain in the chorus for the rest of their lives, happily blended with the other mediocrities until it made a passable murmur behind the stronger true talent. When the third took her place, he barely noticed. He'd already begun refastening his cloak at his throat, musing over his dining options for the evening, perhaps sneaking in enough time for a well-prepared and completely perfect Turkish coffee before retiring. After all, this little trip above hadn't been terribly unpleasant. Perhaps he could...

The thoughts were stopped abruptly in their tracks when the tiny brunette on stage parted her lips, flexed her chords, and released her first note.

After that moment, nothing could ever truly be the same.

He leaned forward slowly, seeking a closer look at the fragile being that somehow produced this sound. She was lovely, that much was true, in that sort of way that women only really are at that particular age. Rounded in the right ways with the creamy alabaster skin that retains a light blush with such aching intimacy. Tiny drops of blood in a bowl of milk, rising to the surface while the transient veil of innocence still clung to the flesh. She had the sort of loveliness that so quickly fades into more mature beauty. That loveliness betrayed her true form, for he would have dismissed the possibility that she could be something more than an inexperienced child playing grown-up at the opera, had he seen but not heard. The voice was her true beauty, and when blended with her features elevated her to the level of something supernatural. For a man who had spent his entire life trapped in the prison of imperfection, the exposure to something so full of crystal clarity pouring forth from such a viscerally appealing vessel was enough to arrest his movement. She possessed a pristine instrument, flawless, untouched by a single defect or sign of wear. She trilled when called for, her vibretto was without critique, and she flexed the full power of her range effortlessly. It was the voice he'd waited to hear, the voice he'd longed to hear for as long as he'd been able of comprehending sound.

Yet, her voice was completely devoid of feeling. She sang like a mechanical toy, something with empty insides. Emotionless. Somehow this stark contrast from the words - lyrics of sadness and longing beyond measure - disturbed him deeply. What had happened to this girl to make her so guarded, so blank?

He longed to reach out with his hands and pluck those notes from the air. Reshape them, guide them. Show them where to tremble, fill them with the aching emotion they were meant to convey. Like a sculptor, he wished to mold those blank and empty words into something beautiful. He wanted desperately to place his fingertips against her delicate throat, as if he would be able to control their release by touch, a vision that caused him to nearly gasp out loud.

Then she stopped, interrupted by that pompous ass of a manager, was congratulated, granted a position. She took her leave of the stage, and he felt a great vast chasm inside, something he'd never before known. It was like the first intoxicating dose of morphine, that voice. Something spiritual that settled deep within you, taking root. A beautiful dark flower blossoming deep, coaxing you to new levels of ecstasy, then withdrawing sharply, leaving you craven. _Desperate._ If her voice had been the height, its absence was the absolute depth. He sat empty, a shell of a man longing for her to come back. And he remained in that passive state ever since.

The chiming of the great hall clock, signaling it was now midnight proper, roused him at last. Erik stood up from his seat in a soporific stupor, opening and closing the door to the hollow column inside his private box blindly, descending the spiral stair in a dreamstate. It wasn't until he stood dumbly at the shores of the great underground lake that he came back to a painful new form of reality. All at once the world came rushing back in, flooding his ears with sound and sharpening his vision until he simultaneously wanted to cover both his ears and his eyes. Everything was so very _bright_, so vivid. How long had he existed in the dark? How long had he plodded on in this state of numb complacency? He was _alive._

_Alive._

For the first time in his lifetime of darkness, Erik _believed _fervently in the light, in the future, it was almost as if he could see it stretched out in front of him, as if he could gather it into his arms. As he left the gently lapping shore and set off for his home, he could feel that future ebbing and flowing with the water. It had eluded him thus far in life, but that seemed largely inconsequential. The fact was that it was still there, it was still attainable, and now he had found that great heavenly beacon that would guide him inland at last. The searchlight that would bring him, finally, to peace. Tomorrow he would seek it again, and so forth and so forth. Until he held it next to his heart.

Now that he knew it existed... that he knew _she_ existed, he felt as if his life had purpose.

He had to see her, really _see_ her, closely... not from the stage. He needed to be closer to her physically, as close as he dared allow. As he made the last part of his journey, the plan began to fall into place. Tomorrow morning, as the cast arrived for the read-through, a mysterious gas outage would render the chorus dressing room - an appalling place where they forced the girls together en masse to dress and prepare like common cattle - completely unusable. With the renovations underway in the eastern wing, they would have no choice but to send the chorus girls into the isolated north hallway. Through careful planning, he would orchestrate her placement. Moving her further and further down, to where there existed a single room near the scullery stair. The other girls would avoid it naturally, the fears of strange noises and lights were already legendary: results of his prior performances to keep one of his many entrances unoccupied. It would be easy to lure her into that room. Somewhere he could keep an eye on her, listen to her, and hope to quiet this strange desire. To finally know that peace he so yearned for.

Erik took a seat at his great dining table. He sat transfixed on something only he could see, his face growing slack and blank. It is true that all men have dreams, but those private musings and desires were not always equal. Erik was a man who had desired nothing but power, guided by it to impossible limits that would have driven a lesser man to madness. He considered himself above the pull of more ... iearthly/i delights, choosing instead higher pursuits. He'd also believed nothing was beyond his grasp, he just had to approach a problem with patience and intelligence until he deviled out the details. Unlike most men, who dreamed their great passions away at night, waking in the morning to find that they were foolish and vain, Erik carried his into the day, pursuing his goals with a cold relentlessness that refused to admit defeat.

Here, into the beast he had created, his one chance at salvation had stumbled. He would not let her slip away.


	4. Chapter 3

It all fell into place like some brilliant, clockwork dream. One by one, his carefully laid "accidents" befell her, drawing her closer, ever closer to where he laid in wait. Like the autumnal sacrificial sheep, driven blindly over the cliff, his quarry continued her plunging path until she at last was safely inside the dressing room at the uppermost end of the north hall. The door closed behind her, she threw herself into the nearest chair in exhaustion.

Erik nearly wept with happiness.

Quiet, waiting, anxious, he watched her curl herself into an artful little ball, arms looping around her knees, shoulders arching forward. Even in this most primal of poses she possessed her unearthly unconscious grace. She shimmered in this dank, dark room every bit as much as she did when bathed in warm light on the stage. He wished for a moment he had thought to bring with him pencil and paper, wanting to commit the vision in permanent record.

So caught up was he in the delicate lines of her form that it didn't at first register that she was sobbing. Not until she raised her face, wiping distractedly at the tears that coursed down her cheeks, did his admiration turn to a strange, desperate need to soothe her. Never before had he wanted anything the way he wanted to stop the endless stream of tears from continuing to run.

He could never touch her, he'd learned years ago that his touch was the opposite of what a woman would ever consider comforting. His very presence was usually enough to turn a melancholy set of tears into full screaming hysteria. He looked desperately about the room, feeling the rising frustration of his own impotence in the insurmountable path of her destructive crying. No, he couldn't physically care for her, not in the way she needed.

Instead, he hummed quietly, tiny delicate notes that resonated in her room, seeming to charge the air with his unseen presence. Her head raised, her neck extended, the last of her tears cascaded down. Too shocked to cry, too full of disbelief, she looked about the room and the way that expression of curiosity transformed her features caused his breath to die in his throat, choking off the sound completely.

Her face turned toward him, and he stared into eyes that forever altered him, creating a tiny fingerling crack in the great stone wall he had built around his heart, the wall he steadfastly maintained through his all his years of solitude. He sank in the knowledge of that heartwrenching instant, the dizzying realization gripping him. Those eyes held power he'd never dreamed imaginable: the power to make him capable of amazing, impossible things... and, conversely, the power to rip his soul from his body and leave nothing but a great vacuum inside. Within those eyes dwelled the power to destroy him completely. He knew then that even once time and distance had ravaged the memory of her face, blurring her features and distorting her memory completely, those eyes would haunt him with a burning permanency. Two liquid brown pools, poisonous and dangerous and alluring. Pulling him closer to the edge, luring him with their siren song of blissful catatonia.

Asking him to drown.

Again the heavy eyelids closed, fighting back the second wave of tears. He had gone too far. In his urge to calm her, he had somehow turned a key that unlocked within her a door best shut tightly. Her fists clenched, her mouth dropping open in a wide "o" of pain and she slipped from his control, driven by some internal demon that threatened the horizon of madness.

From Christine Daae's perfect mouth came a cry of such horror and desperation, such a swan song of aching, unending torment that it chilled the blood in his veins. For a delirious moment he came close to losing consciousness, feeling as if his circulatory system had failed him and refused to operate in its normal direction. Stubbornly, it fought him until the sweet, arresting sound of her fevered whisper brought him back from the very brink.

_"I miss you, Papa, I need you. There is… nothing without you. I'm trying so hard, but I need more than this." _Her voice was pleading, her eyes beseeching in the darkness for a sense of hope. _"Send me the angel of music… he mustn't be a lie… he can't be… he's the only hope I have in the world…." _

She folded back into herself, his wilting flower of despair and longing. She was lost and alone, desperate and searching. She needed above all else the protection of a guardian, someone strong and able to lift her above the stinking muck this profession would again and again try to force her down into. She needed to be cradled... _protected._

For a long, silent moment, there was only the sound of her sobs and the deafening echo of his heart thundering in his ears.

Erik could never be the man to save her, this much he knew to be true. His would never be the shoulder she rested her head upon when the world became too much to bear. His would never be the hand she took in the dark, when she was frightened. He would never be whom she returned home to every evening, nor the first thing she reached for when waking at daybreak. That dream he would never realize.

But that wasn't what she asked for, was it? It wasn't what she begged for, prayed for, craved with such intensity that it nearly made him tremble to hear the words.

She wanted an angel. And he had played that part before, hadn't he... as well as the other side? He'd been the angel of doom, the angel of death, the son of the devil, and even - in whispered superstition they believed never reached his ears - the devil himself.

Once, when he was a young man still touched with some semblance of green innocence, he had been the last vestige of hope for a small, sick child. And, at the end of that child's life, he had been the saving grace that ferried him into sweet oblivion.

_Angel._

The words left his lips almost without thought, unfurling the first line _"Caro nome che il mio cor," _wrapping the notes in soft, rich Italian, _"festi primo palpitar."_

With consumate care he used the strange acoustic properties of the small corridor behind the mirror as an amplifier, filling the room with the sound of his voice, _"le delizie dell'amor, mi dêi sempre rammentar..."_

Planting the seeds with his lyrics, alternating innocent and commanding, _"col pensiero il mio desir, a te ognora volerà..." _

So fixated on her response, that he didn't take time to consider the meaning behind the song he had chosen so blindly.

_"E pur l' ultimo sospir..."_

No thought for the words he'd chosen to ensconce her in.

_Sweet name, you who made my heart  
throb for the first time,  
you must always remind me  
the pleasures of love..._

_My desire will fly to you  
on the wings of thought  
and my last breath  
will be yours, my beloved._

When the last note quietly died away, he felt the incredible tension in the room. Like a gossamer string stretched too tight and plucked into painful reverberations, it hung heavy in the air.

This sword of Damocles he'd breathed into existence.

_What have I done?_


	5. Chapter 4

Many times in his life, Erik had heard of the concept of deafening silence. Silence so heavy and blanketing that it was nearly unbearable to hear, silence that engulfed you, body and soul and seemed to pulse with its own existence. It was often the subject of whispered confessions of women hiding in the eaves of the opera house, women who had experienced the sort of attentions only wealthy, handsome patrons appeared capable of giving... their excited retellings of the prior night's ominous meeting, the flirtations, the wine, the slow build up, the blissful neglecting of reserve, the sweet release, and the expected gifts and proposal soon to come. All of the events unfolding under the heavy hanging clouds of this anticipative silence.

He'd never believed it possible, to experience that sort of void. That sort of absence of sound that made your heart catch in mid-beat, that caused your fingers to go quite rigid, grasping at something unseen but highly desirable. With his own hands now clenched into claws, fingers long grown sensitive from the cold pallor of his accommodations screaming from the pain, Erik was a man enlightened. He didn't notice the complaints of his possibly arthritic hands. He no longer heard the thunder of blood in his ears. The quiet static of the candles' gutter, the way the hall behind him always held the faint seashell sound of wind, the strange gasping breaths she admitted on the other side of the glass were all muted, dampened below the level of his comprehension by the overwhelming cacophony of the thick moment they shared. Like an impenetrable fog of fervent energy, that silence lingered until it had dissipated nearly completely, dissolving away and bringing back the simple sounds of her dressing room, the steady thudding of his own heart, and the ragged, expectant breathing she was making no attempt to control.

Here he stood, as if he were one of those ridiculous chorus girls, someone capable of being held in thrall by the effervescent expectation, the giddy fear of what's to come. One hand raised, he pressed his fingertips against the glass she now stood dangerously close to, his eyes drifting closed as she whispered, close enough to cause the skin of his wrists to tingle, as if they could feel her breath.

"_Whose is that voice which consumes my mind and body? Whose is the voice I need? Has the angel of music at last graced me, an unworthy mortal?"_

Each word seemed a reverent prayer, welling within her and tripping over her tongue, pushing past teeth and lips and becoming an offering to him, laid bare on an altar. In frustration he pulled the gloves from his hands and again placed his fingers against the glass, soundlessly tracing the line of her collarbone as she stood frozen in her breathless, ardent adoration.

His hushed reply twined words with lyrical flight, focused and muted at first, projecting it away from his presence, lest she become aware of something all-too tangible standing so very close. The soft, tinny song slowly increased in volume and clarity, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, his words sadly and sweetly spoke of cradling and protecting her, that he would not leave her alone, beckoning she stay close with an undercurrent of pulsing power, demanding obedience. The voice told her that it needed her, that she needed it, that it existed only for her, and in its unspoken terms it assured her she would certainly waste away without it. It promised care and comfort and whispered of darker affections in the same breath.

Oh, he had calculated his life up and until this point so effortlessly. He had been a prudent and cautious man, he could see that now. He'd laid out all of his plans, put so many of them into action, hoping beyond hope that his work would endure a hundred, two hundred years. Maybe further. That his genius would exist in places and memories the way his name and face never could. That it would be his mark left on the world, the monument to who he had been as a man. That thereby he would truly conquer the world that had shunned him.

How the unexpected so intrudes.

It was madness to think, to even dream, yet there she was... blushing and trembling at the sound of his voice, aching and yearning for him to continue. To tell her what to do. To make I worthy. As if _she_ were the lesser creature. The mad part of him, sinister and seductive, quietly reminded him that she would likely do whatever he asked. The rational part won out, responding with a flash of anger to the ludicrous suggestion. This was not to be a clandestine arrangement. There would be no services rendered. With his knowledge, with his means, he could elevate her to the level of diva. He could bring out of her the ability to make grown men weep and women faint. He would construct her into an awesome and terrifying instrument of music. And that was how he would obtain his release. He would find no greater ecstasy in this life than to cultivate her talent.

At long last, he knew this is why he'd been put on this earth.

"Tonight," he heard the words coming from his lips, but did not believe he had spoken them. "Tonight, after the lights have gone down, after everyone is gone, after it is cold and dark. Rehearsal space _six_. Do not be late."

With one last raking glance at her, he turned and made his way back below. He feared, above all else, that waiting for her reply would have trapped him there for the rest of the day, well into the evening. He would have watched her dress without a thought, would have wasted away his hours worshiping her.

Behavior hardly befitting her heavenly-appointed guardian.

No, it would have to wait. He would have to wait.

Until tonight.


	6. Chapter 5

The room was still, save the faint ticking of the mantle clock, a relic he'd brought with him from his mother's house. Something he remembered being constantly present in childhood, and now associated very closely with the concept of "home." Strange, how the mind worked. How a place where he had been met with so much pain and derision should still be desirable enough to emulate, to bring small affectations from its walls into his own. Even after the memory of his mother's voice had faded, he still carried images, snapshots of a childhood best committed to mothball memories and driven into the deep recesses of his mind. He wondered at the strange lingering presence of those remembrances. Gardens long forgotten. Shabby rooms now preserved in the antique Byzantine-tinged frames of memory. Funny how even time can make the horrid somewhat beautiful, even if only in a nostalgic way.

He'd filled the long hours with a series of menial tasks, trying to keep his hands busy and his mind numb when he wanted nothing more than to agonize and obsess, replaying the scenes from earlier and planning and plotting the setting still to come. Finding that path detrimental to his peace of mind, he'd instead attempted sleep, assuring himself in a rather naive way that rest would pass the hours quickly and leave him more alert and calm when the appointed time arrived.

After nearly an hour of restless thrashing, he heaved his legs over the side of the bed in frustration. Sat up, craned his neck wearily, regarded his dim bedroom with a critical eye. The light from the outside hall blanched the carpet with its pale light, but even when bathed in greyish white the somber overtones of the room were not lost on him. The room was dark and menacing, the furnishing imposing to a ludicrous degree. And as if the gothic tomb he chose to sleep in was not disturbing enough on its own, its state of disorder dealt the crushing blow. A pile of books - treatises on architecture, masonry, history, and the arcane - toppled from one threadbare armchair. A heap of discarded clothing lay across the bench at the foot of his bed.

He left the room, eager to be out of its dank and claustrophobic space, and found the rest of the house similarly alarming. His home was a mess of discarded paper and overstuffed bookcases, the contents of which were now dustily and decrepitly escaping from their perches and threatening to overtake the floor. An old collection of now-defunct maps and building plans had tumbled from one of the shelves and nearly destroyed a collection of crystal orbs from Norvgod. The evidence of the disaster, something that must have been a spectacular show, now lay in shards and crumbles at the foot of an absurdly high-backed wooden chair. He surveyed the aftermath with a look of hapless dismay.

When had he let things fall this far into disrepair?

It wasn't just his bedroom. This house was a prison he'd entombed himself in, hung with all the trappings of the funeral pyre. Like some great and decidedly mad pharaoh, he'd collected the few items that signified landmarks in this life and hoarded them away, allowing them to crumble and break without a second thought.

Erik wiled away the time putting some semblance of order back into his life. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, he gathered the discarded remains of his possessions and repaired what he could - tossing the rest into a large basket he would later empty into one of the many empty wells dug by the commune in years past. His clothing returned to the wardrobe, his rugs swept clean, the pile of dishes washed, and the scattered scraps of paper attended to at last, he retreated to the massive Turkish bath which was, by far, the most luxurious appointment his otherwise modest house had to boast. Thick with marble and heaped with soft rugs, it had at its centerpiece a large and deep tub.

It was into this tub that he sank, feeling oddly satisfied with the activity of the day. It wasn't as if the transformation, and the reason behind it, was entirely lost on him. He'd finally felt the need to get things back in order. To make his home a home again. To make it, and by extension himself, more presentable.

_Presentable to whom?_

The realization hit him like a surprise blow to the stomach. _Oh, no you don't. _That little voice, admonishing him in the back of his mind. _You're not __**really **__thinking all this is going to result in... in what? A houseguest? A visitor? Do you really believe for a __**moment**__ that she is going to breathlessly follow you down __**here? **__Why? Why would she ever do such a thing? Do you believe she's going to keep up this whole charade once she realized who __**really**__ lurks just out of view?_

"No," he whispered aloud.

The house answered him with silence.

Twenty minutes later he made his way quietly through the rotunda passage, pausing twice to listen to the vast emptiness above. How long had he lingered? Surely the opera hadn't been dark for too long.

Rehearsal Space Six was surely one of his finest achievements. He'd taken the idea from the mirrored room he'd built the Shah, octagonal mirrors that pointed in at one another, giving anyone in the center of the room a merciless view of themselves from every possible angle. The ballet corps had taken to using it for practice space, finding the views easier to carefully critique which of the dancers were out of step, out of line, out of form. For him, it provided the perfect illusion. The lights in the room made anything above the mirror's top line impossible to see. He could watch her from the precipice above, the spot reserved for the accompanist, while she would be blind to his position. He made his way quietly through the eaves, up the small stair, and onto the platform.

Below, her skirts spread out around her like some fallen flower, Christine sat with her hands folded in her lap. Patiently waiting. For _him_.

The first cold hand of doubt clutched his heart as he gazed down on her penitent form. This was _madness_. How long could he possibly pray to keep up this charade? How long would she go without revealing she was being visited by angels here in the opera house? How long until someone put two and two together and she learned the horror of truth? It was madness to come here. It was madness to pursue her. It was madness to play this silly game when it would inexorably lead to his own destruction. Erik turned toward the stair again. He'd been foolish and simple to consider it, he'd behaved ridiculously and...

"_I have done as you wished, please, grant yourself to me… I surely could not bear it if it were a mere figment of my imagination…."_

Her words reached through him, pulled him by the spine backward to the edge of the overhanging catwalk. It was as if she knew what to say, when to say it. His resolve to just leave, to walk away and forget her name, her face, her voice had drained from him completely. He could no sooner turn his back on her than he could deny his own existence.

"I am here," he said softly, flexing those unique properties of his voice that seemed to most enthrall. Erik knew how his voice affected people. Men always seemed happy to serve the possessor of its strange undertones and women... women somehow seemed to be muted under it, held silent and breathless. He'd assumed it was out of fear, something in his voice threatened and commanded and they were loathe to disobey.

Once, he'd flattered himself into believing it might be seduction they were experiencing. That was shoved away, he knew only his own arrogance presumed such things.

"Speak," he commanded. "Tell me what it is you ask of me," he took in a breath, "and I will tell you what I require of you."

She rose at the sounds of his voice, propelled upward on invisible marionette strings, swaying and smiling faintly, her arms turned outward in a show of deference and supplication. He found it more intoxicating than anything he'd before known, the way she bent beneath his will like a reed in a strong wind.

"_Oh, angel, I shall do whatever you ask! Lead me to the ends of the earth, take me from this wretched place and teach me!" _Her face flushed, head bent, the words poured from her in breathless excitement. Erik became eternally grateful for the railing beneath his hands, his grip tightening as each dulcet tone floated up from her lips.

"_Teach me all of the wonders of music and beauty. I am merely a humble servant to you…" _the last words departed her mournfully, her chin tucked into her chest. The strange tide of desire that had threatened to overtake him turned into a wash of sympathy, the rising guilt inside causing his own flesh to flush. He'd nearly forgotten himself.

"_I am a simple girl, unworthy of your gifts. I will live to serve you and music until the last star is extinguished in the heavens…."_

His gloved fingers again curled around the railing roughly, his eyes closed as he fought back his own impulses. In the dark recesses of his mind he could still see the pale crane of her neck, the soft expanse of her arms escaping her sleeves, the way her chestnut colored hair fell unruly and wild about her shoulders, obscuring them from view at times and at other moments allowing glimpses of them. In all of his childish wantings and wanderings, he had dreamed of womanhood this perfected. In the silly attractions he had held to the two young girls he'd had the unfortunate luck to be fleetingly close to, he'd nevertheless noticed their flaws, the imperfection of their features and the strange awkwardness of their form. Christine Daae, the ethereal creature who breathed and trembled just below his perch, held none of those characteristics. For as much as she worshiped him now in blind adoration of something she could not know, he worshiped her in every possible way, seeing her now bathed in the most unfeeling and whitewashed starkness of amplified light. She was perfection embodied.

He imagined what it would be like to brush the thick tangle of curls back from her shoulder with his bare hand, to feel their weight tumble through his outstretched fingers as they brushed against the warm skin beneath. He imagined how her skin would smell - powdery soft, lightly perfumed. The way she would yield in unquestioning acquiescence, her eyes heavy and accepting. _Yes. Yes, anything. Whatever you ask._

"_Tell me, what is it you would have me do?"_

The laugh nearly escaped him, choked back as he pressed the back of his hand firmly to his mouth. The moment of unexpected levity... is this what happiness felt like? It wrapped around him, causing him such wanton thoughts and strange moments of giddy lightheadedness. Little, delicate, beautiful, coquettish... she was absolutely mesmerizing. Surely he could not be the only one to notice.

The realization slipped between his ribs and stabbed his heart like an icy dagger. He wouldn't be the only one to notice. The opera house was packed regularly with wealthy patrons, silly men who's youth and well-bred good looks often held the women in damp thrall. He saw the way they behaved, the corps de ballet, standing at the edge of the stage and courting the attentions and affections of the audience. More than once he had the poor judgment to walk the halls behind the private boxes, or the darkened corridors outside the private dressing rooms, after a final performance. When the emotional drain from the run coupled with over indulgent celebration. Often, he would avert his gaze from the shameless and flagrant couplings that seemed inevitable on those evenings. Later hearing the regretful tears of the girl forgotten. So caught up in the moment, her virtues forgotten and shoved aside with so many layers of crinoline. The older girls would always sympathize, nod understandingly, such things happen, it is the way of the stage.

He'd often wondered how drunk on spirits and applause one of them would have to be to seek out his affections.

But, there was truth in the words, such things happen. As long as there was performance there were beautiful performers and the men who adored them. Christine Daae would be no different. Her great beauty and her talent would make her a beacon in no time, attracting the attentions of every boxholder. She would demure, at first, as they always did. But it was only a matter of time before the right combination of wealth and rugged handsome features would seek her out. The thought of her, locked in embrace with one of the ridiculous men who haunted these halls...

"Obedience," he let out in a harsh whisper. Remembering himself, his breathing back under control, the voice turned soothing once again, "In order to learn as you desire, I must have absolute obedience. Nothing must turn your attentions from your studies, from your lessons. You will rise in the morning, you will go directly from your breakfast to your rehearsals here. And, after you have taken your dinner _alone_, you will return to me, leaving only when it is time for you to rest. No outside interferences. No hobbies. No other pursuits. No..." he took in a single shaky breath, "_admirers. _This is the price of glory. This is the bargain you will strike with me. In exchange I will elevate you to where you so desire. However, if you disobey, I will withdraw and you will never hear from me again..." his grip tightened on the railing beneath him. "Am I understood?"


	7. Chapter 6

The moment seemed to stretch on in a tense silence that made him shiver in spite of the room's warmth. Below him, she trembled in echo, her tiny gasps of breath arousing an irritatingly carnal response in him.

"_Oh, angel, I will do whatever you ask of me! Please, do not leave… you can never leave me… I would surely not survive." _

She dropped to her knees and he knew he was lost, that no matter how she feared his departure from her life, he would surely cling to her with an even greater ferocity for as long as she deigned to allow him. She whispered fervently between her clasped fingers, the erratic prayer forcing him to hold his breath, for he feared missing a single syllable. She vowed undying loyalty, she promised to cleave only to him, and she did so with all the solemnity and breathless excitement of a wedding vow. Then she drove the final nail into the coffin of his resolve.

_"Take me!"_

_"Take my soul, for it is of no use without you! I have no need of my humanity."_

Oh, Christine. She knew not what she asked. She knew not _who_ she asked such things of, or the torturous accuracy with which she had chosen her words. The things she said, the promises she made, the gifts she asked for... how could she know that they were the very things that caused him to tremble and quake with the same blushing fever that wracked her small frame?

"_I shall do anything you ask, anything at all. Just… do not leave me. Do not leave me to torment and this horrible solitude."_

With those words, he became a man condemned for all eternity. His fingers loosened their grip on the railing, falling away soundlessly to hang limply by his sides. What she asked of him... what she _pleaded_ for... it was madness. Funny how often that word came to the front of his mind in regard to Miss Christine Daae.

_Take me. _How he'd shuddered when she'd spoken those words aloud, the electric and unfamiliar tingle running down his spine. He backed away from the edge, unable to stare down at her while she begged for him to carry her away from this world, to descend with him into the deep darkness where she would never be found. Safe, cradled, captive. Erik asked himself if he could do as she asked, and how long she would stay enraptured of her surroundings. How long she would stay quiet and obedient before the horror set in. How long she could remain blissfully happy in his presence before he found she'd hung herself with her bed linens... or opened the veins beneath her pristine skin. He'd seen enough death caused by his existence, he couldn't bear to be the cause of hers. His own death he had been willing to accept without question. He wrestled with death regularly, both from his careening, dangerous pursuit of some semblance of normalcy as well as the near suicidal level of chemical comfort he provided himself. But to know he extinguished the flame from that girl... to know that her young life was snuffed out because of _his_ doing was something he found absolutely reprehensible.

He made his way down the small stair that stood at the back of the platform, a mixture of relief and regret washing over him once she had slipped from his view. The control for the gas lamps that flooded her chamber with the harsh and unrelenting glow lived at the base, and he turned it slowly, allowing them to dim gently before guttering out. The sudden, intense onset of dark would no doubt frighten her, so he sang as he did so, an old lullaby in an eastern tongue he'd learned during his years in the older, darker, more superstitious parts of the Slavic world. He knew the song well, the story of how the dark is not to be feared for the virtuous of heart... he had no intention of harming her.

The rounded room would now be blanketed in the inky darkness, the only light the dim pale glow of the moon through a distant skylight. It bathed her in its luminescence, but left the rest of her surroundings in shadow. Waiting until she turned to gaze at her own reflection, he slipped into the room through the doorway just beyond her range of vision. He needed to be close, without her knowing.

This was as close as he dared.

Even though twenty-five steps still spanned the distance between them, farther than they had stood apart when he'd hidden behind her dressing room mirror, the feeling of standing with nothing separating them but the still air affected him deeply. It was as if he could feel the warm pulse of her heart in the quiet room, feel the way she reacted to the sound of his song. She turned again, as if trying to follow the path of his words, stepping forward into that spill of moonlight.

And all of time stood still.

Erik became momentarily drunk in the sudden awareness of his surroundings. He could hear the light rustle of her skirts, loud as thunder. Every speck of dust that floated up around her in that beam of light seemed frozen in air, awaiting his critical inspection.

Yet, even though everything around him was now intensely existing in a realm of crystal clarity, all he could really see, feel, sense was her. He'd been so wrong about the way she smelled. Instead of the powdery perfumes of the chorus he'd encountered any number of times, Christine smelled of warm spring air and thick fields of wildflowers. She smelled exotic and alluring and rapturous. As she stood there, her wide eyes searching the dark, her lips parted slightly, her skin and hair aglow, he felt it again - the great unraveling within. The song died within him, for his mouth had gone dry, his tongue thick and heavy, unwieldy.

He _wanted_ her. The intensity of the feeling devoured him painfully from within, nearly causing him to lose his footing on the otherwise stable ground. But wasn't that what she wanted? Wasn't it what she had said? She gave herself _willingly_. She'd uttered the words, she prayed for this. _Take me_. And in the great underbelly of this world within a world he'd helped forge, he could do just that. He could take her bodily to his world below. He could take her mind, that much was evident. She gave it so willingly, so blindly, when he spoke. And her soul... that she had offered up, that she had promised. With time, with careful suggestion and the right artful words, he could coax from her that final gift. He could quietly will her into submission. Trembling and breathless, she would eventually allow him to divest her of that which she held most sacred, giving him the only true release he'd ever known.

_No_. Erik forced himself to breathe, to take in silent gulps of air until his body unclenched from its prurient rigor. _No, not like this. She belongs here. If you take her she will never know the heights she could climb to. She will never know the adoration of the stage. She will never achieve all she asks of you. You will destroy her. Like you have destroyed so many before._

His eyes blinked, the tears he wasn't aware he had shed slipping down his face. He realized he'd left her alone in the silence and the dark too long.

"Christine," he said the word in a venerating whisper, fearful his voice would be too thick with the desire that still clung to him. "We begin with warm up. You are always to warm up before singing..."

Later, in the bleak darkness of his bedchamber, he replayed the entirety of the lesson over and over in his head. The way she'd responded to his coaching as if it were the thing most natural to her. The paralyzing fear tinged with previously unknown ecstasy when she'd unwittingly drawn too near. He'd kept her just tantalizingly out of reach but close enough to make him feel off-balance for nearly three hours until his own fatigue got the better of him. With whispered promises of returning to her the following night, he backed out of the room and deftly returned the flood of light to the chamber, knowing the effect would befuddle her enough for him to slip away undetected.

Despite his exhaustion, sleep would not come. The racing of his blood and the frenzy of his mind kept him awake long past when the dawn broke through the windows several floors above. When he did at last slip into a troubled slumber, his dreams were full of high cliffs, dangerous precipices and churning waters. All the time he could hear the hint of her voice on the wind, telling him to plunge. Telling him he could finally rest in the depths below.

He awoke disoriented, and realized with a jolt that he'd slept through most of the day.

This cycle continued for nearly a month. He stayed with her until she was too weary to continue, standing in the darkness of rehearsal space six, hanging on her every word, adoring her with every inch of himself, even as his eyes devoured her shape in the slip of light that single transom allowed. His days were lost to restless sleep, and his nights to heaven in the intimate yet separate moments with her, and the hellish hours after she departed, where he found himself locked away in his prison of a bedroom, contending with the relentless, insistent, unyielding agony he found her mere presence provoked.

And time slipped past.

Until this night, the night when the moon at last returned to the same full state it had blessed them with the first evening they met here. Erik found himself listening in uncompromised awe to her progress. When she stopped, the last notes of the aria drifting away, he stayed silent for a long moment before saying the words he feared as much as he had anticipated.

"You are ready."

Tomorrow night was the premiere of _Faust_, with the role of Marguerite stolen by the tedious and plodding Italian soprano the managers had dredged up from some Sicilian sewer. He'd cringed when he heard another role had been given to that horrid cow of a woman. Who would believe Faust would sell his soul for the love of something that looked like a painted nightmare? And her appearance was only half of the horror, for the woman boasted a terrible tuba of a voice, loud and abrasive and insulting, assaulting the senses with all the charm and appeal of blunt force trauma from a forging hammer. She pummeled the senses into submission, leaving you feeling beaten and bruised and violated after.

It would never do.

"You must be backstage at quarter to six, no later. The lead is ill, gravely ill. As is her understudy. I will make the arrangements."

He heard the beginnings of protest from her circle of moonlight. Unable to bear her pleading, her fears, her need for comfort, he departed immediately, turning the lights up and disappearing. She would be left to sort out her own emotions.

Erik, after all, had some business to attend to with the cast.


	8. Chapter 7

The _bella prima donna _- the phrase as insulting to his ears as her presence in these walls - insisted on taking her breakfast quite late in the morning, on the veranda overseeing the street below. It was part of her grand tradition, part of her pre-performance superstitious practices. She claimed, in her ugly and grating voice, that to see the masses beneath teaming with excitement for the upcoming show provided her with just enough excitement to propel her through the performance at her ultimate peak. In reality, these adoring throngs were nothing more than imagination. The hurried crowds bustling in the street below were not at all concerned with her and her ridiculous showcase, their thoughts and intentions turned more to crossing the street without getting crushed, the errands they had to run, getting back to their jobs or families.

Completely blinded by her own psychotic fantasies, she persisted in waving to those moving about below, pausing only to feed her equally ludicrously coiffed dogs a scrap from the table, or kiss them full on the mouth.

Everything about the woman was ridiculous.

She was fortunately so engrossed in her ministrations that she never noticed the brief disappearance of her champagne flute. Nor its sudden reappearance moments later, considerably bubblier than it left.

The understudy, a plump and sallow girl, had been a fair bit easier. He delivered the concoction via injection into a berry scone. She didn't question its placement on her dressing table, and gobbled it down almost immediately.

It took less than an hour for the news to spread. He heard it from the giddily screeching ballet girls, their voices a mix of horror and absolute glee.

"She vomited up her breakfast right in his lap! And again and again... she didn't stop until she'd coughed up her stockings!"

"Both of them, came down with it suddenly!"

"I hear it's a flu."

"No, no... _maladies sexuellement_."

There was a gasp and some tittering laughter.

"Well, **I **heard they were out drinking..."

He moved away from the crowd, feeling the smile spread. In three days time they would both have it quite out of their systems, and hopefully both be a bit humbled by their individual performances.

Moving through the flys, he was jarred by the vision of something he hadn't quite expected. Christine Daae stood beneath him, nervously poised. He wondered if the news had yet reached her. Before he could think to act, the _corps de ballet _surrounded her, regaling her at once with the tale of hilarity, the shrill voice of one Meg Giry rising above the others. His eyes narrowed. He had been overly generous to little Meg, and she remained as silly and impermanent as ever. Why, for the favor granted by her mother this very day he had promised to arrange her promotion. Yet she didn't behave a bit the prima ballerina she supposedly aspired to.

As if she had heard his thoughts, Madame Giry made her way through the crowd of tulle and white satin. Her words were low and terse, but he didn't need to hear them... after all, hadn't he written this little speech for her?

"Christine Daae will perform tonight. Her placement on the list of understudies was decided days ago. She is instructed to return to her dressing room until she is called for." She curtly thrust forth the letter confirming her statement, signed in the shaky hand of _A. Moncharmin. _Oh, this little bit of arranging had been hardly easy. He'd nearly had to threaten the man's entire genetic line in order to get him to acquiesce. But, gripped firmly in the cold hand of terror, he knew they would at least allow her this one night. This one chance.

It was all she needed.

He watched Christine move from the crowd in a daze, her face still trained on the words before her. With her so engrossed, it was easy enough to traverse the few hundred yards down below, up the side passageway, and into the corridor behind her dressing room mirror. There he waited for her arrival, every nerve needling in pain until the moment she opened the door, removed her cloak from her curls, and laid the letter on the dressing table.

"You're early..." he said quietly. "But better early than late. I hope you took adequate time for rest and food, you're going to need your strength tonight."

She'd never questioned his decision to have her practice solely from the upcoming opera's libretto. If she felt confusion in his insistence she perfected the lyrics and notes, she never showed it, not in the entirety of his tutelage.

Only once did she lose her temper, lashing out at him in exhaustion and frustration, demanding things from him that froze him in place. She'd showed such will and passion, such determination to not be left alone at the end of their session. Without thinking, he'd crossed the space between them, so close he could feel the angry puffs of air from her lips. It had been a new moon that night, the rehearsal space was pitch black. She shifted suddenly, as if she _knew_ he stood so close, her face turning slightly upward, lips still parted. A strangled sob escaped her mouth, and a delirium-inducing wave of her warm breath hit his lower lip. Everything grew heavy, his grip on reality blurred. He realized with horror that he had raised a hand, reaching out, hellbent on pulling her to him.

Erik did the only reasonable thing he could think to do. He _ran_. For three days he hid from her, locked away in his empty house, pacing the carpets like a great caged beast until he was quite sure he had this impulse under control. When he returned, the guilt was overwhelming, she appeared to have neither slept nor ate, hovering in that stage of near insanity, waiting for that final slip.

As he saw her now, alive and healthy save the paleness that could only be borne of shock and nerves, he knew he could never wound her like that again. Not even if she demanded the unthinkable from him could he completely withdraw from her life. She, for whatever reason, needed him as he needed her.

If only it were in the same way.

"Marquerite," he continued, wrapping the word in tendrils of affection, "is an emotional role. You must draw on that tonight. Even more than I have required in your practices. She is someone who awakens to the siren's call of love, someone who knows its exquisite sting quite keenly. And even though it is all trickery, she believes in her heart that there is no other man for her in this world. You must sing as if you believe that as well." His eyes lowered, his words coming even though his mind railed against their meaning, "You must draw on that feeling of perfect love lost. You must remember what it is to be in love, and to have that love removed. Surely there is something you can cling to, surely you have felt that rush tempered by bitterness." His hands were fists at his side. She _needed_ to channel the emotion, even if he couldn't bear to think of who ran through her head while she did so. He'd never thought of Christine experiencing love with anyone... but it had undoubtedly happened before. Something chaste and fleeting that caused that same enlightenment he'd felt the first time he'd heard her sing.

With a dull sinking sensation, he realized she'd probably feel it again. Even as he would remain here, shackled by the chains of her memory and the sour refrain of _what-might-have-been_, she would continue to experience love. With someone else.

Not with him.

He choked back the cry of frustration and rage, knowing that his words had betrayed him. Even now, after they had relentlessly escaped his lips, he knew the pathetic and deplorable sadness had infused every syllable. How he must sound, her glorious angel, jealous and maudlin. Hiding from her even though he desired her above all others.


	9. Chapter 8

Numb silence reigned as he watched her sink to the floor in front of the mirror. Her face was a mask of worry and sadness, her confession tumbling from her lips in a torrent.

_"Yes. Yes, my angel. There was... there is... no, no... there was..." _Christine's fingertips fluttered against the glass, her breath shook. _"There is a feeling... there is a growing pulse inside that pulls at me even now."_

He stood, riveted in mute astonishment, feeling her words peel and pick away at him, like old paint on a southern-facing wall. At first, he became uneasily convinced that she was speaking of... well, if not _love_ at least some sort of human, base affection. Not spiritual elation, but something more flesh and bone and warm and... he felt the flush start at his face and overtake him, until his entire length was nothing but hot pounding blood. Had she stopped with those words, the words that made him feel as if perhaps he had been misinterpreting her blushes and her stammers, the odd state of breathless anxiety she held herself in when he drew near, he would have done the unthinkable.

Perhaps she had been in on the farce all along. Perhaps she _knew_ he was man and not spirit and yet continued, mechanizing a way to draw closer without startling him off. Perhaps _he_ were the frightened animal she hoped to coax into the open, and not as he'd believed it, the other way around. Her words beguiled him, caused him to forget entirely who he was or the great chasm that existed between them. On his side of the glass, Erik pressed his fingertips against the barrier, inches away from where her beseeching face lay. They continued in a slow languid sweep, outlining the curve of her jaw until coming to rest in the hollow of her cheek. Had she stopped there, had she remained in this heavy silence, he would have given in. Without a word he'd have held her in his arms, the way he dreamed it. His suffering would have ended with her crushed against him, warm and alive and inexorably _his_.

Her whisper brought him back to the here and now. _"But I have upset you. I feel the sadness with the aching of my bones, the throbbing of my mind madly against my soul… if I am the cause, leave me! Abandon me to torment for I am not worthy of you if it is I who causes such misery… I could not bear it. Leave me. Let me wither and die and leave this life, for I could no longer bear it. I would rather die here and now than continue and drive you from my presence" _Her words, as always, tinged with madness, betrayed the underlying fear. She feared leaving the safety of this room, of their sessions. She feared belonging to the public.

He withdrew his hand, his shoulders drooping as he sagged against the wall. _Wrong, wrong, wrong. _How many times in his life would he let his stubborn arrogance play with his head? _You fool_. She didn't _love _him. Not as a man. She wasn't some incredible soothsayer, who had deviled out his cunning ruse. She was a girl. She was a girl he'd found emotionally crippled and had ended up breaking her further. She didn't love him, she feared him and feared this life. He'd warped and twisted her until she'd become convinced that only in oblivion would she truly be happy.

He was a monster.

Christine still knelt at his feet, penitent and supplicant, waiting for him to destroy her with a word. He felt himself cringe in revulsion for what he'd done.

"No..." the word came out ragged, he swallowed hard and tried again, "No, you are not the cause of my sadness. You must not concern yourself with anything except the task at hand. You should be preparing. This is what I have prepared you _for_. Every great beauty in this world is the result of careful plotting, careful thought. Everything we admire, every work of art, every piece of architecture, every line of poetry or of music, was, before it appeared, a single thought in the mind of another, an impulse from the heart. It is up to you to decide whether that thought, that impulse, takes you to glory or the asylum. Tonight you take your rightful place on the stage. Tonight you will lift the hearts of men into the heavens themselves. They will feel your divine pull, and they will tumble willingly."

_And I, as always will be among them._

He felt the sentiment most keenly, although he didn't have the fortitude to speak it aloud. One impulse from him had set this dizzying dance in motion. But he was no longer in control.

For one look from her could make him the happiest he'd ever felt... and one word from her could destroy him.

"Go," he whispered. "Prepare yourself."

_Leave me to suffer alone in the dark. Where I belong._

Christine's fingers slipped from the glass, her arms fell limply to her sides. For a few seconds more she lingered before rising unsteadily to her feet, smoothing the skirt beneath her.

His gloved fingers were at his temples, massaging away a headache induced by the strange sadness this entire encounter had engendered within him. He'd expected to feel such great exultation on this, the launching of her career. Yet somehow it had been tinged with such unforeseen longing and the restless tugging of doubt. She seemed uncertain, this much was true, and it made him uneasy in turn. It was almost as if she feared her appearance on the stage would take her from him completely.

The most frightening part of it all was that it was the same anxiety that plagued him.

"The hearts of men are worth nothing to me. I sing to please you, eternally – glory in your absence is meaningless. Life would be without purpose." Her voice was flat and lifeless, her eyes fixed on the rug at her feet.

Erik laughed gently in spite of himself.

"Your glory will not be in my absence. I assure you that nothing will change when you take your place on the stage tonight. The stars will continue to shine on you from the heavens. The earth will continue to move beneath your feet. And I will watch and listen as I always have. When you perform, I will always be near."

The lump in his throat refused to be swallowed; preventing the release of the words he longed and yet feared to say.

_Christine, don't you realize? There is nowhere you can go that I will not follow. You carry me with you always… as I will always carry you with me._

The relationship between them, if one could call the arrangement of increasing insanity a "relationship," had been tempered thus far by a barrier through which there could be no exchange of emotion. She'd cried, she'd begged, she'd become furiously angry with him, yet he had felt the need to maintain this stony silence in response. He gave comment when necessary, direction when needed, as much comfort as he could without betraying a single moment of his own feeling.

Somehow, tonight had changed this.

He felt it growing between them; this strangled new emotion that threatened to surface, new and terrifying. In the distance it loomed, the large dark wave that he knew existed yet could not clearly see. Threatening on the horizon, ready to strike, it lingered just outside of his perception. Yes, he feared it coming, yet more than the fear that it might overtake him was the complete paranoia that, once he found himself pulled under, he would not find the comfort of those slender feminine fingers entwined with his. That he would plunge alone while she remained above the frothing death, allowing him to sink.

Tonight she played Marguerite. For the first time, perhaps for the last. And like Faust before him, he would watch in the shadows and know the honey-nectared pinprick of wanton longing. Her voice would enchant all who were gathered, and for the first time he would only be one restless admirer in a sea of faces.

Faces infinitely more pleasing than his own.

And yet, seeing her there, standing before him, refusing to move away, he reminded himself that things had changed. Tonight, more than ever before, a dream should be sought after even if it has only one small promise of hope. He had forgotten who he was in this seemingly fruitless pursuit of her attentions. He was not a person who stood helplessly by and watched something he desired fall into another's hands. He was, and had always remained, someone infinitely more clever and resourceful than that.

From that one small promise of hope he could continue to search for fragments, splinters, scraps, anything that bore the possibility of something more. Anything that was capable of resuscitating him, body and soul.

While it may be that he is doomed, that there is no hope, he would not go quietly. No, he would not lament, he would not elegy, he would not requiem this away.

And although this dance may be the one that carried him too close to the edge, the dance that finally brought him to where that looming wave breaks against the rocks, he would make it _such_ a dance.

The knock sounded on the door, her seamstress and dresser would enter in a moment. Erik straightened himself upright behind the mirror, feeling this new resolve strengthen him. He felt confident, electric, _alive_.

"Go," he commanded quietly, but firmly. "You must turn your attention fully to performance. It is time for you to become the diva you were destined to be. The audience will be full of empty vessels you will command into ardent devotees. All will listen with rapture and admiration. Tonight will be yours, and I will be with you. I will be with you during your preparation, even though I remain silent. I will be with you during your performance, even if you cannot see me. Once you are finished and the accolades and applause have died, you are to return here. I will be waiting."

He felt it again, the heady and dangerous thrum of that inevitable wave. It charged the room around them, making everything bright and vibrant and full of nervous energy. With his palm again pressed against the glass he whispered, "Go," a final time and, with a newfound sense of determination, hoped for Moncharmin's sake that box five had been left empty.


	10. Chapter 9

Not only was the box empty, but had clearly been dusted very recently and came equipped with a bottle of spirits. Erik's brow raised in surprise. Apparently this latest volley of threats to get the enigmatic Christine onto the stage had resonated with the management. They generally treated him with an air of cautious indifference, this was the first time he'd noticed an outward effort to show respect.

One could become used to such treatment.

The sounds of the supper club floated through the halls, dining reserved for only the most prestigious of patrons and invited guests that stretched on longer than was truly necessary. He could mark the progression of time without a watch, based only on the subtle cues resounding from that lavishly decorated space. There was the gentle tinkling of crystal noises that signaled the early cocktails during what was known as the "social hour." Followed by the announcement, introduction, and seating of guests. Next came the elaborate soup and fresh bread portion, where the seated attendees vainly attempted to maintain polite conversation whilst inconspicuously sipping soup and avoiding both spillage and breadcrumbs. These courses droned on and on through various versions of portion size and theme, ending with appertifs and the cheese course... why the cheese course came after the dessert was something Erik found so irritatingly peculiar about his native country, and somewhat pretentious. By the time the ladies had retired to touch up their coiffure and décolletage, and the men to their cigars and scotch, Erik was firmly ensconced in his seat, restlessly awaiting the reason for the entire celebratory affair.

The early arrivals were already aimlessly wandering the halls, the inexperienced theater-goers and the young both exclaiming in delight at the decorative touches, the design flourishes he had long grown immune to. Next to arrive were the upper loge seat holders, they were always irritatingly upper middle class and convinced that arriving early was some sort of necessity. They would mill about in the stairway below the balcony, making polite conversation with those they were already acquainted with at times, and generally looking awkward and insecure the rest. Once the sheet music was being set in place, he could hear the cheerful exclamations of the ladies returning to the supper club, and knew it was time to make his way backstage, back again to his space above the flys.

For years, as he'd watched his days wax and wane, felt the ground beneath his feet change in both form and function as the landscape shifted and spun from setting to setting, he'd always wondered at those around him who did not share his path. Those who rushed through the streets and into darkened doorways without looking at the buildings around them, those who did not tarry near the rose-trimmed gardens of Bangladesh, those who never paused to appreciate the way the glass of St. Thomas' reflected the early morning sun. He'd often tried to understand why they hurried, what would be so pressing and so urgent that they hadn't the time to appreciate their surroundings.

And although he often puzzled over it, he knew in his heart of hearts the stark reality of the truth. Sometimes, at dusk, when he was quite alone and the lights of whatever province or city he currently haunted began to flicker to life around him, those moments when he was relaxed and trying to fight the tide of stagnation rising within him, urging to press on and leave his current home... that answer, the answer full of those unrealized hopes and dreams would dangle on the horizon, just out of reach. Like delicate glass bells, gathered up by the handful and released slowly into the breeze, they played their vitreous alluring song, reminding him of what he never quite closed his grasp around, and never could. It was a maddening image, and the only way he'd found to deal with it was through chemical means, just enough to hang on until dawn roused him from his romantic musings and back into the practical world that existed by day. Even though it hastened the rising of the sun that chased away those longing regrets, it never really helped. Not truly.

They didn't notice the world around them because they had something to hurry home to. They hadn't time for the backdrop, only that someone worth rushing through life for.

So he'd comforted himself all these long years through a series of intricate lies. Not the lies he told about his past - for even though those who knew his past thought them fanciful creations of a disturbed mind, he knew every recollection was completely true. Nor the lies he wrapped himself in, the clever diversions and deceptions he used to keep himself from too much exposure, to protect himself. The lies that he had chosen to soothe his soul with were those he told himself: that he was not a member of this race that called itself humanity; that he was a being removed and enlightened, so far above their animalistic trappings and urges that he'd needn't worry about those base comforts; that he was something incapable of feeling love, and therefore the absence of one who loved him from his life wasn't something that could affect him. He'd told himself that he required only comfort and power, and since through power could he obtain the means to the level of comfort to which he'd become accustomed, that power was by far the most important thing he could strive for.

He'd told himself that it was more important to be feared than to be loved. It was much safer to be feared rather than loved, after all. Additionally, he knew how to make someone fear him. He had quite a talent for it, he'd discovered.

Yet, in spite of all of his education and studies, his experiences and his encounters, he'd never learned how to make someone love him. Love was given of free will, and none he met ever gave him their's freely. Nor could he take it, even if he took everything else.

Staring down now at Christine Daae, who waited in the half-light in a gown of resplendent elegance, her hair bejeweled and face rouged, he knew that he could have every wretched being who walked this earth in abject terror and complete obedience at his feet and it would still never be enough. For the man who believed it better to be feared than to be loved now found himself trembling and vulnerable in the awesome power she wielded.

"Christine, how could you possibly be so calm! The lead role… the lead! It is surely the work of **him**, it certainly couldn't be fate." The voice was Meg Giry again, the girl was practically a mosquito in the way she buzzed about Christine's ear. He watched Christine's expression turn to one of derision at the mention of "Le Fantome." It knifed his heart to watch her disdain for the tale, but it hardly surprised him. The moniker, originally something he'd embraced with lighthearted fancy, had begun to lose its shine as the tales that surrounded it grew. He was described, naturally, as the world's most horrifically ugly monster. The sight of his face, it was said, could cause instant fainting or worse - death. From the frown she wore, he could tell that Christine's reaction to the name was the same as the rest of the company. He was something to be feared, yes, but something more to be disgusted completely by. Not a man at all.

A thing.

He should return to his box. Yes. Best to watch this from a distance lest he hear something else that would rend his heart into a thousand pieces. Erik turned to make his way back to the stair when he heard her respond to Meg dismissively, a change of subject.

"_I have a wonderful teacher."_

It stopped him dead in mid-stride. He felt the flutter in spite of himself, and forgave her at once for her prejudices against _Le Fantome_. She wasn't, after all, just one of the company, was she? She was his beautiful songbird, and tonight was not only her night... it was his.

Funny how she put things so in perspective. As Erik made the journey back to his seat, he realized he no longer cared whether the earth he stood on was the center of the universe, or whether he and Christine and everything else on this planet was a speck of dust lost in the great eternity. He neither knew nor cared. All he knew, all he cared for, was that she made him happy, and for the first time in his life his own happiness was important.

The orchestra tuned, the lights dimmed, the royalty and the common man were all struggling together to find their seats. Everyone looked breathless and shiny in the rosy glow of the lamps. He'd always held some form of disdain for the idiots who found their comfort and excitement in the performing arts, for while he had no doubt they appreciated the beauty, he believed the gathered masses never truly understood the emotional response a well-executed work could engender within. Tonight was a full house, overflowing with the humiliated, outraged masses who turned their pale faces now toward the curtain, eyes closing dreamily and preparing to receive the comfort they believed this experience could bring. They imagine that the sounds that flowed into them, sweet, nourishing, and that their sufferings and desires became the music they heard. They thought the beauty that they paid to receive was compassionate toward them.

Four notes on the flute now, trilling and dying away, pulling them inward. _You will feel with us. You will become us. Suffer in rhythm._

He watched in acute agitation the prelude and the introduction of the story, his fingers worrying the armrest of his chair as he awaited her appearance, the cacophony of nervous energy inside an echo of what he was sure plagued her backstage. At last, Christine made her way onto the stage and the calm washed over him. She took to the stage as if she were born there, a true natural talent: at ease, poised and statuesque all at once.

Then, her voice... that amazing pull of sound that at once fascinated and reassured him. In a sense, it wasn't new, but that was part of the attraction. The familiarity of its perfect beauty made him ache inside, as if saying to him, _"I am yours, you did this." _She sang the way he wished she would, as if it were possible for her even now to hear his gentle direction. The way she turned her head, the way she moved her arms, she entranced the audience and drew them in completely. Yet there were times Erik felt as if everything and everyone else had fallen away and it were only the two of them in the vast and open space. He felt as if it were his soul that laid bare on the stage before them, and that its continued existence relied on the two of them, on this very performance. There were times she looked up and it was almost as if she were staring directly into his eyes, and he felt something powerful transfer between them. This intensified through her performance, leaving him feeling exhausted and spent during the times she was absent from the stage. It was as if the fury and passion she sang with was honoring him, celebrating him, a toxic and self-serving illusion he could not help but fall beneath.

Once someone has sung for you, has poured their heart and blood and soul into a piece of music for you, that person is transformed forever in your eyes. She simply wasn't human any longer. She was something better than human, something amazing and effervescent and borne of the music he'd cultivated. She was so much more than he'd envisioned, and in turn had made him something more. She defined him, she showed him who he was.

In her voice, he was reborn.

And although it remained true that in what had seemed only moments ago he had discarded the notion of his own importance in favor of the happiness she caused to well and overflow within him, he now knew that he had been wrong once again. Christine Daae was the center of the universe, and he knew it as surely as he knew he needed her radiant fire.

_"My heart foreseeing your condemnation, into this tomb I made my way by stealth, and here, far from every human gaze, in your arms I wished to die..."_

He rose to his feet, feeling the strange dreamlike trance overtake him. _Yes._

_"Holy angel, in heaven blessed... my spirit longs with thee to rest."_

The song ends, her voice quavers away, drowned in a sea of applause, and he is decided. Her voice tonight showed him, proved to him, that this was bigger than just himself, bigger than her. No, they are not the same, but they can be _one_. And although his is a life slaked with blood and a past that haunts him, she would join him and cleanse him, together they would end this mockery that time had made of his existence.

Behind the mirror he waited, waited to tell her of this amazing revelation he'd experienced.

And he waited.

What could be taking her so long?

When she at last burst back into her dressing room, cheeks flushed and radiant, he realized what had kept her. It was his greatest fear realized, and as he looked in mute horror at the collection of flowers that were practically overtaking the room, he wondered how he could have possibly been so stupid. Yes, he knew now. He _knew_, but he was alone in this staggering epiphany. While he had at last realized the breadth and depth of his adoration of her, she had been caught up in a flurry of admirers. How could he hope to still capture her attention, her affection, when she now belonged to the world?

He hadn't even time to congratulate her, she was interrupted so frequently by ardent devotees and the management, trying to get her to dine or god knows what else with this wealthy patron or that son of nobility. Although she expressed no desire to do so, and at one point broke down in an alarmingly divalike display of frustration at the requests, he still felt the doubt creeping in. It was only a matter of time, after all. Only a matter of time before he lost her to the right request, the right man.

The room was abandoned, she had crept out a good hour before and not returned, leaving him wallowing in self-pity and abject despair. Erik tried in vain not to envision the man she had finally agreed to leave with, the dark carriage he undoubtedly commanded, pulled by horses of impeccable breeding and grooming. They'd dine in one of those candlelit bistros the chorus girls drooled over, sharing an intimate supper and copious levels of wine, followed by champagne. Her suitor would suggest a moonlit stroll through the Rue, as they were so inclined to do, her head resting on his strong shoulder as he deftly tilted her chin upward, lifting her face to meet his own chiseled features.

He nearly cried out in pain from the image, the jolt sending him back into the moment as the door creaked open again. He noted with relief that she still wore the costume he'd seen her in earlier, that her hair had yet to be taken down. She hadn't left the building. Something had kept her here.

In the years he'd graced this world with his often unwanted, but sometimes useful presence, Erik had often marveled at the strange twist and turns of fate. Life was a marvelous curiosity, when observed clinically; the way things unfolded, sometimes disastrous and sometimes causing everything to fall perfectly into place. As if it were meant to be. When it was at its very best - these random events strung together to form experiences - it was very good indeed; at its worst it was unspeakable, unimaginable in its unforgiving cruelty; but first and last and all of the time it was awe-inspiring. He'd always laughed quietly at mankind's need to believe in destiny, that things were predetermined. Instead of staring in amazement at how random events led to such fortuitous occasions, men chose to believe those events were divinely ordained.

He'd never believed in it, personally. Nothing was predetermined, after all. Choices had consequences, consequences became events, events changed things, and change is how we mark time. He believed in that process. He believed firmly in sequences, orders, if-then scenarios, but always knew that the ultimate randomness of it all was what made life _truly _interesting. There was no fate. There was no divine intervention. There was no answer to the great mystery. Although some things seemed Meant to Be, they never actually were. It was just a fortunate outcome of meaningless interactions, seeming revelatory and perfect and spiritual because it was the outcome the person experiencing said revelation had desired all along. It was always destiny when things turned in your favor. When they didn't, no one called it fate… they just asked _Why?_

As a man firmly ensconced in this reality of the random, he'd considered himself reasonably at peace. It made him _reassured_ to witness the great mystery, and to feel as if he were the only one to know that the secret, the _meaning _behind it all was that there was no meaning at all.

As he watched her reenter the room and close the door firmly behind her, he felt that grasp on what he believed to be true shimmer and fade. Reality folded a bit, and chance once again swept in, forcing itself upon him, shoving a new reality into his vision.

She'd sang tonight. She'd sang for him. And now she had returned, despite the offers and invitations from more worthy and suitable suitors. She'd returned for _him._

He'd once convinced himself he was in love, with a selfish little Italian girl named Luciana. It had ended in tragedy, as had the other two brushes he'd experienced with more lustful infatuation. He was sure it wouldn't happen again, that he had mastered those emotions and garnered control over them. That they were fleeting at best and never really _real, _after all.

He'd known he planned to tell her tonight, he'd planned to end this ridiculous charade and allow her to choose freely whether to continue with him or to be free. He had planned to tell her he loved her. However, everything had changed when he watched her come through the door. As he watched Christine Daae wait in breathless anticipation, he realized just what he was witnessing for the first time. Yes, he'd listened to her sing earlier and yes, he'd realized he loved her, but until this moment he had not realized how significant a love it truly was.

He once again felt the fire grow. Yes, he knew what he was meant to do.

_"Caro nome che il mio cor..."_ he knew how this had to continue, he knew what needed to be done.

_"... festi primo palpitar."_ It was an innocent suggestion, wasn't it? She would understand the significance, wouldn't she? She would know this was the way it had to be.

_"le delizie dell'amor, mi dêi sempre rammentar..."_

He lured her with his voice, not holding back a single palpable moment of its true power.

_Come to me._

_"col pensiero il mio desir, a te ognora volerà..." _

_Yes... remember? Remember that first night. Remember the elation_.

His voice dropped lower, becoming more hypnotic, rhythmic. It reached out to her, wrapped around her, pulled her. But he had to be careful, he had to make sure to choose the right moment, the moment when she would truly be ready and would follow willingly. Too soon and it would induce only panic.

_"E pur l' ultimo sospir..."_

His eyes trained to her face like searchlights, he watched and waited, drawing out the last line of song until he felt her will break completely. Her eyes raised, lower lip quivered as if on the edge of a sob. He heard the sharp intake of breath as her pupils became dark saucers, unseeing, blind...

_There._

The mirror pivoted silently, he outstretched his hand, waiting for her to take it. Tonight she would be his, and although that realization should have stirred a sense of great victory within him, he couldn't help but feel that he had just lost this great battle. That she had won and he had lost. She had been the one thing that had finally bested him.

For, no matter what might befall them, she would forever change the way he felt about everything else.

The moment hung heavy and tense, thick as winter ice, impenetrable. He felt as if his life were suspended in it - his breath and blood in arrest, waiting, pensive. His fingers, still outstretched, trembled as he waited. _Waited. _Her face, freshly scrubbed of its performance paint, glowed in the dim. Rapt, attentive, completely within his thrall, she bore the look of dreamy-eyed disbelief. Her eyes opened wider, the pupils dilated fully. _Yes._

Her fingers slid over his, grasping the base of his thumb as she rested her hand fully in his. Her skin was so _warm_, even through the glove he could feel it. Erik inhaled sharply, feeling the tingling sensation of disassociation wash over him. He fought the dizziness, steeling himself, keeping himself as reserved as possible.

"_Take me, angel. I will follow you into this darkness, wherever it may lead… only let me stay with you!"_

Quiet, breathless, almost inaudible, the words fluttered from her and his eyes snapped shut as if he'd been struck. She had such a way of knowing what words to allow to trip off the tip of her tongue, deadly knives of words that shredded what remained of his grace. With her vow she became the sin that stained his soul.

This idea, this dream within a dream that he had allowed to grow and blossom into fruition, became less vaporous and more ironlike with each moment. He pulled her through the underworld with the golden chains he'd woven, and like Persephone before her she followed to her own damnation.

He kept her at arms' length, even when he felt her try to push closer, the determination to fight her growing less and less with each attempt. In the great marble hall that marked the entrance to his private home he finally released his grip on her hand, stepping back from her slightly. Later, as he sat awake and unable to focus at his massive dark writing desk, he would leaf again and again through the memories, each moment bringing with it the heady mix of euphoria and misery. When was it, exactly, that this great rift in his sanity had truly begun? In that glittering moment when he'd first heard her voice? The evening when he'd heard her first swear her undying loyalty to him with all the devotion of a penitent nun? That elegant Tuesday evening, when the light of the full moon spilled across her features and he found himself wonder, for the first time, what the delicate curves of her parted lips would feel like, were he to brush the pad of his thumb against them? His excessive desire for her grew, garnering the status of an inherent singularity.

In the cold and the dark, the only light the flickering blue of dim flame emanating from the walls, he'd stood stock still. The fear of the unknown crept in. He'd not taken this abduction plan further than this, not in his mind. And now as she existed within his own personal walls, he feared more than ever before that he would not be able to hold back the rush of his frenzied hunger.

She hovered at the edge of his vision, in the shadow. With the hesitance of a kitten's first explorations into an unknown room, she wavered forward, her hands limply hanging at her sides. As if she were sleepwalking she continued her unsure steps, lurching forward slowly at first and then with more confidence. The last few steps were covered so quickly that he barely had time to react as her arms snaked around his middle, her face buried into his lapels. He remained perfectly still, his hands held stiffly out and away from her, as if he didn't trust them enough to allow them close.

Erik could hear the shuddering breaths, feel her quake against him. It was too much. _Take me, angel. I will follow you into this darkness, wherever it may lead… only let me stay with you_! Those words, like a verbal slap, resounded in his head. She squeezed against him and his mind tumbled down the cliff away from reason, to the inevitable. With the right words, the right carefully applied notes, she would comply completely. He would have her. Here, right here, on the cold stones without a moment's hesitation.

One of Christine's hands wound its way up the lapel, to his collar and he came to his senses. His hands found her shoulders and he pulled her away, turning her around swiftly so that her back was to him. Again he was surprised at how very warm she felt, even though the room was freezing cold and she was still clad only in her dressing gown. The fabric was sheer and silken beneath his fingers, and Erik silently cursed the barrier of his glove.

Afraid he had been too harsh, he soothed her with melodic whispers. Italian, as he'd spoken to her earlier, then in the thick tongue of Russia, the velvet draped tones of Farsi. The tale he wove was of infinite comfort and protection. _You will come to no harm. _He spoke of adoration, he spoke of care. She had slipped backward as he spoke, the heavy curls that had tumbled loose from their pins brushing against his mouth, the place where his collar met the bare skin of his throat.

From this daydream there was no waking. Erik's eyes closed, memorizing every detail of her scent.

When he'd found her, alone and broken, she had been "The Daae Girl." Spoken of by the management, a thing of lovely fragility he longed to draw closer to. She was "Christine Daae" in the practice rooms, in her dressing room, the name always spoken in entirety, as if through sheer formality he could hide the depth of his infatuation. Earlier this evening, she had earned the status of "Enigmatic Ingenue," by far the most glorious praise he'd heard from one of the more critical patrons.

Her weight pressed against him fully, her head lolling back against his chest. He felt his hands lose their tenuous grip on her shoulders, slipping down her arms to entwine his fingers again in hers.

Here in his embrace, finally in his arms, she was simply "Christine." _Always._

His lips found her ear. _"J'ai besoin de toi," _he intoned softly. _"Ton image hante mes nuits, me poursuit le jour, elle remplit ma vie."_

Christine went limp, dropped dead away in his hold. This had been too much, he realized grimly. He'd always been so careful, treading so lightly with his words and voice. Tonight he'd given in and released the full power he commanded, and done so with words that could prove too overwhelming for someone unaccustomed to even the slightest hint of affection, of approval.

She was placed to rest in the bedroom, tucked beneath a pale-colored quilt, her hair spilling against the pillow. He considered taking her hair out of its pins, letting her rest without threat of the small metal objects disrupting her, but he feared where that would lead. It was unlikely anything he could do at this moment could rouse her from her deep slumber... she had, after all, barely stirred when he brought her in here... and he couldn't be trusted to touch her any more than he had. He'd very nearly given in to his insistent arduous impulses when she was so eagerly seeking out his attentions earlier. He'd nearly forgotten himself completely. He'd nearly done the unthinkable without a second thought, right there on the cold unyielding marble of the foyer. She turned over slightly in the bed, exhaling a light puff of air. She slept so soundly, likely wouldn't wake, not even if he...

Erik had left the room immediately without glancing back.

Now, after the blood had quieted and he had some time to reflect, the panic set in. She was here. _Here. _In his home, in his _bed_.

Eventually she would wake up.

What then?

Was he going to fix her breakfast? Discuss their favorite books? This was absolute madness. She'd awake, see where she was... who _he_ was and it would become pandemonium.

_What had he been thinking?_


	11. Chapter 10

Erik hadn't slept, hadn't even attempted it. The knowledge of _her_ in his walls was too much to endure. No matter where he went in his home he was aware of her presence as if she were a blinding beacon, seeking him out regardless of how well he tried to hide. Three times he'd attempted to undertake some simple task in the hopes of distracting his mind from returning to dwell on the way she looked as she slept, so peaceful and perfect. Three times he'd risen in determination to work on something menial, to clear his head. Three times he'd found himself inexplicably outside her closed bedroom door. Three times the delirious notion that the very walls were closing in around him had nearly sent him running back to his own room.

Only fear of her waking to find him gone kept him from fleeing the house completely.

So he'd waited here, caged and quarried by her existence. Pacing the carpets like an animal.

With the quiet and the empty, left alone with his decidedly unquiet mind, he had to ask himself the "what next" part of the equation. What if she was frightened? What if she felt victimized by what had befallen her the night before?

God forbid, what if she asked him what he wanted from her? How on earth could he answer that question? Truthfully?

"Everything," he whispered aloud, feeling the pathetic nature of the response blanket him.

He recalled the night prior with a mix of aching nostalgia and bittersweet shame. He had behaved most out of character, had taken advantage most assuredly, but it had resulted in a moment, a clarion sublime moment that had first taken root at the instant she took his hand and reached its climax when he felt her weight fully against him, her arms clasped around his back.

It had been the first time a woman had ever touched him willingly. And to go so quickly from joining her hand in his to wrapping him in her embrace was nearly more than his soul could bear. He'd stood like a trembling child, unsure of how to respond, while she had clung to him. Like he was her last refuge, the jutting rock in the middle of the vast and stormy sea. He longed to be that for her. He longed to be the beacon she had become to him. Pulling one another inland, away from the cold and the dark.

He longed for her to hold him again. Yet, he felt he would end him utterly if she did.

The clock on his desk delicately released eight notes. _Eight. _Sasha would be starving. She had become rather accustomed to being fed at a particular time.

As if she'd heard his thoughts, a plaintive mew sounded on the other side of his door. Erik reached for his jacket and wondered idly if Christine had awakened. He'd assumed automatically that her waking would be accompanied by some sort of cacophony, something to alert him. He realized he'd assumed that she would awaken in a state of panic, and he would be forced to react at a moment's notice. All of this careful planning and worrying was not exactly what he'd had in mind at all. The creeping knowledge that she could also be silently stalking about his halls, like a feral cat, left him feeling cold in the chest. What if she'd tried to run? What if he found her bloodied and torn in her bed, the same way...

_No._

Erik's thoughts turned again to the night before. To the way she'd clung to him. To her shoulders in his hands, her head dropping back to rest in the hollow where his neck met his chest. The way her fingers had sought his out greedily, squeezing against them. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her, and the way she'd looked on the stage just hours ago, gold sconcework and scrolls, draperies and statuary unable to compete with her shining beauty. He'd felt the warmth of her skin through the thin stuff of her dressing gown, and she'd held his hands in her own. He closed his eyes, froze the vision in his mind.

_Now call up your cold and your dark and be damned._

He opened the door quietly, Sasha rudely slipping through the narrow opening and beginning her shameless dance around his ankles. The fire in the living area outlined a mass of bed-ruffled curls, framing her pale face. Her gaze had obviously followed the cat's progress to his door, and she now slowly slid her eyes up the door's gap to meet his own.

_Forgive me, oh God, my father, for I have sinned._

It was an eventuality he hadn't prepared for: to find her here, awake and lucid and seemingly calm. The way she stared at him now could only be read as boldly curious, not terrified. Erik felt the hot sting of shame. Had he broken her so very badly? That she no longer understood she needed to be afraid? That he embodied everything that should send her reeling in terror from the premises?

He straightened his jacket before walking through the door, eyes trained on the guttering fire behind her. "You'll catch your death, if you're not careful," he said quietly, coolly. "A voice like yours needs to be kept free of infection. Drafts speed infection." He tossed a cotton blanket onto the arm of the couch before stooping to stoke the embers back to life. Nothing to betray the turmoil inside.

"I assume you're hungry. And likely in need of a cup of tea."

Without waiting for a response, he made his way to the kitchen. Best to keep up the charade, as if this were _normal. _Best to keep it light, and formal. No lingering glances, no quiet conversations, no questions with heavy meaning.

Even though all he wanted to do was sit beside her, take her warm rounded fingers in his and tell her everything that surged and raged inside him. That was impossible.

Why did she make him forget that was impossible? Why did looking at her make him forget what he was?

Worse yet, why did remembering what he was now come drenched in the regret that he couldn't be someone else?

_Oh, Christine. _

Erik escaped to the kitchen as quickly as he could. The porcelain rattled slightly as he set the cup down, cursing under his breath at his inability to keep his hands from shaking. Somehow, in spite of the close proximity to her just moments earlier, he had managed to keep his composure fully. After the closeness of the prior evening, he'd discovered that being within her reach was an unspeakable torture.

He knew that it was out of sorts to behave as anything other than a distant but polite host, that it was unseemly to have her in his home, that she would think the absolute worst of him. He wasn't a fool. He was, however, a gentleman. Those traits had practically been beaten into him as a child. Even if the majority of social interaction was a complete mystery to him, Erik knew the formal dance that accompanied having a guest in the house.

It was in her best interest for him to remain as courteous and aloof as possible. He didn't want to frighten her, and he had learned that the best way to keep from frightening anyone was to keep his distance.

The kitchen's door sighed, causing Erik to splash scalding water onto the tile. Setting the pot down, he turned to see what had caused the sound and was startled to find Christine making her way into the room. In the warmer light of this significantly more intimate space, her skin glowed a soft pearlescent pink, her hair cascading in messy tangles in a way he found nearly obscene, as if she had just woken from a lover's bed. The blanket she now wore wrapped round her shoulders did nothing to dispel this illusion, giving rise to all sorts of uncomfortable imaginings. He longed to remove his gloves, drag his fingers through the rough tumbles, push them back from her face until she dropped the soft cloth from her arms and stepped closer, so he might fold his arms around her. As if his were the warmth she preferred.

It was a most uncomfortably indecent thought, here in the stark reality of early morning.

Good god, didn't she know? Couldn't she see the barely caged salacious _need_? Why did she come in here to torment him?

He stood stiffly, hands folded behind his back, eyes trained on hers, trying to read the reasoning behind this intrusion. He wondered if perhaps the cat had upset her, Parisians were not known for their extreme love of the creatures, after all. Perhaps Sasha had swiped at her, the way she was prone to do with strangers.

"_I… cannot stay in there alone. May I… stay with you? I promise I won't be a nuisance." _She sounded on the edge of tears.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest. She didn't know. She didn't understand that drawing near to him caused an agony he could not endure. Perhaps she didn't remember the prior night's... interlude. Perhaps she had blocked it from mind because it was something too painful to recall. Or perhaps it had frightened her so very badly she didn't feel the inclination to acknowledge it. Even though he couldn't seem to remove the memory from his mind, burned as it was into the recesses of his thoughts, haunting and plaguing him.

Despite everything within him clamoring to run, to shove past her and lock himself away lest he do something as hideous as reach for her, he found he was once again able to repress the screaming of his own body enough to manage a response. Turning from her, somehow managing to pour the hot water without his hand betraying even a tremble.

"You are free to linger wherever you choose. It doesn't disturb me one way or the other." He kept his tone indifferent, dismissive.

Oh he was a most vicious liar.

"If the cat bothers you," he continued, "I can shut her in another room. Although, that will not particularly endear you to her. She's rather used to having run of the house, I'm afraid."

Silence in response. Her eyes burned into his turned back. He couldn't stay in such close quarters.

With the tea tray in hand Erik indicated the door. "I don't customarily take my tea in here, although I suppose an exception could be made, if you preferred. Still it is rather small..."

He led her back into the main parlor, depositing the tray on a low oak table and seating himself in the wingbacked chair opposite the small couch. With a wary quizzical look he regarded her as she rearranged herself back into onto the sofa, carefully avoiding the curled form of Sasha, who rudely slept in the absolute center of one of the cushions. The cat awoke when the sofa dared to give out the slightest creak, stretching luxuriously and patting across the floor to jump lithely into his lap. Erik noted Christine watched Sasha's flight across the living room with unabashed malice, her pretty features twisting into a most unladylike scowl. The blanket slipped from her shoulder and he realized she was still half-dressed from last night's performance. How careless and thoughtless of him. She must be miserable. "I suppose," he said softly, looking away from her to stare intently at the fire, "you'll be wanting to return home soon. I imagine you have appointments, meetings..."

Erik trailed off, staring still into the flickering flame, not trusting himself to utter another word. He was surprised to hear her begin to stammer, her words choked by something that could only be anger.

"_N-no. There's… I have nothing to return to." _The words cut deep, and he again felt the burning sting of shame. Of course there wasn't. He'd seen to that, hadn't he? Isolated her from humanity, kept her like a prized possession in a gilded cage, made her swear off all human contact. There was nothing to return to because he'd quarried her with his jealousy and his obsession. Loathsome, utterly loathsome.

"_Why… would you bring me to your home if only to grow tired of me so easily?" _

For a long moment there was no sound at all, save the crackling of the flames. He continued to stare into their flicker, puzzling over the thinly-veiled hostility in her words. First the reaction to Sasha, which confused him completely. She was only an animal, after all. One that seemed largely indifferent to the new houseguest. The cat, for her part, had barely paid attention to Christine on the sofa and was now seated, purring happily, on his knee. He couldn't imagine what would have drawn her ire. Sasha was usually impeccably behaved, and aloof in that way only Siamese cats ever truly achieved.

Then there was the matter of her other... statement. He sighed and rubbed distractedly at his jawline. It needed a shave. In the hazy dreamstate he currently existed in - pulled from him by the emotional turmoil the past twenty-four hours had brought combined with a noticeable lack of sleep - everything seemed weirdly unreal, including the question.

He hazarded a glance at her, intending to answer, and noticed the blanket had fallen away completely. Christine sat upright, staring at him demandingly, her shoulder bare where the gown had slipped. In the raging glow of the fire, she looked like a warrior queen, hair wild and unruly, eyes blazing. It was an impressive effect not lost on him - nor was the way the firelight illuminated the sheer dressing gown she was still clad in, the lacy cotton clinging in places and billowing to allow suggestive silhouette in others. His fingers clenched on the arm of the chair and he took in a shuddery breath as she mournfully uttered, "I wish to stay with you. Please…"

Little minx, as if he could deny her anything right now, in this state. He folded his arms across his chest and looked back to the fire. "If you wish," he managed quietly, even as his blood boiled and skin burned. He wondered idly if she'd still be so bent on staying here, with him, if she knew the covetous craving that consumed him, body and soul. This decidedly one-sided mockery of a romance he was experiencing.

It would surely end in the rich torments of hell.

"You'll still have to practice," he continued, worrying the riveted seam of the chair's arm with one finger. "Here and with the company. We can't have you losing your place, even if you're not going to be continuing the role of Marguerite. We can't have you missed. You'll need to rehearse in the afternoons, perform when called for, and then you can return." To me.

He made the words sound conditional, as if he wasn't aching with ever fibre of his being to keep her here, to keep her close, to pull her down onto the thick carpeting and curse the opera and the management and her career and the entire outside world to eternal damnation. As if returning here were her reward, and not some sort of sick and twisted power play he was busily constructing.

"You can return when you are finished with your opera duties. And your private instruction will continue. I will make the arrangements. I will send for your belongings." Complete and utter control. Although he knew it was wrong, he knew it would be the only way. Freedom was insanity, for now that the world knew of her existence she would be hounded by those opportunistic boys. Boys with money and good breeding who never exercised the full extent of their manners or judgment. He'd seen it befall too many a girl who didn't possess her talent, or hold his affections. He wouldn't dream of allowing her the same disgraceful fate.

The utter lunacy of what he'd just proposed, the impossible and idiotic bargain he'd just struck, took another moment to sink in. Erik's slender fingers joined and tented, providing a point for him to rest his chin upon. His face remained passive as he struggled to get his heart's thundering back under control, his mouth set in the same straight thin line it had affected the moment he found her awake and demanding attention on his sofa. After a long, pregnant silence he stood quickly, causing the cat to startle and stretch lazily. "We should take you back," he said quietly, examining his gloved fingers intensely. "They'll wonder where you are. And I suspect you'd like to dress for the day."

He wondered for a moment if it would be easier to deal with her presence were she dressed like a lady instead of some walking embodiment of his darkest fantasy, messily tossed into his domain in her underthings. "If you would gather your things before rehearsal... I have a man..." he cringed at the word, at how pompous it sounded. "Leave your address here, I'll find that everything makes its way back safely. And then tonight, I will meet you at the Rue entrance, on the south side of the building. I assume you know where that is."

Not waiting for a response, he stepped from the room. In the depths of his bedroom wardrobe he had a single imperfect cloak, something he'd had commissioned by a new tailor who had failed miserably and constructed the garment a full five inches too short. The tailor, trembling in his boots, had explained his assistant had made a mistake in the measurement. However Erik could see the starkness of the truth outlined in every crease of the man's face. He had done it intentionally, for while he feared displeasing this new client he even moreso wanted him to leave and never return. Somehow Erik had been unable to throw out the garment, keeping it as some sort of reminder that it was best to stay with what he knew, what made him comfortable. The outside world was not to be trusted, after all. It regarded him only with disdain and fear.

He returned to the living room, tossing the cloak on the empty space next to her. "It's too cold to traipse about dressed... well, dressed as you are."


	12. Chapter 11

(Apologies for my lengthy absence. I'd like to claim it was due to some lofty pursuit in life, but in reality it was because I didn't have it in me to write a single sentence. Anywhere, on any topic. The fuel to write is back in me again, and I hope it stays.)

Six hours later he stood on the banks of the lake as Jules recounted all he had encountered. It seemed Christine Daae lived as a common pauper, in a dismal flat with spotty electricity and nothing in the way of care besides a poorly-groomed maid. Jules spoke of the dingy building, the drafty walls, but what concerned his master the most was the address. In the lower block of the _Guilliest_, the crime roamed as freely as the drunks, and he felt the tightening of his throat at the thought of her pale, winsome face passing quietly through so much debaucherous degradation night after night. Erik looked with further dismay at her shabby luggage, almost afraid to open and see how lacking her wardrobe was. With a delicate flick of his fingers, the clasp on the trunk closest fell open and he sighed. The money seemed to appear from nowhere, his hand empty one moment and filled with a purse the next. He then tossed one of the garments, a blue piece well-worn toward Jules, as well. "They'll be able to determine the fitting based on this. Madame Beauvais, in the _Sorsonne_, near where my tailor is. Tell her money is no object, I want a full ensemble, fit for a queen. Formal, day, dressing, nightclothes, _accoutrements_, everything. You may take anything _prêt-à-porter_ she recommends. The rest we will wait for. And I want it back before nine, here. You will be well compensated." Jules did his nearly regulation bowing and deference - which Erik found endlessly tiresome - before disappearing back above ground.

He returned to his home, to perform the final preparations for her return that evening. The box on the mantle, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, had sat atop his mother's dresser in his childhood home, one of the many cold and perfectly cared-for relics of his past life. He'd kept it dusted, her jewelry and a few stray mementos he'd never been able to learn the story of resting inside. The jewelry he'd cast off without a second thought, but the trinkets he'd tucked away. A photo of his father as a child, a newspaper article that bore virtually no meaning, two tickets to a play he'd never heard of, and a broken chain, the pendant that occupied it long since missing. This box was now removed from its customary resting place and taken to the spare bedroom, the room that had been redressed this very afternoon. New blankets, thicker rugs, the fireplace cleaned and the floors scrubbed. He placed it on her dressing table, running his fingers over the etchings with care.

Later, on the Rue road, he waited anxiously, pacing a small line forward and back. But it wasn't Christine that first came running, breathless with agitation to his side. He found himself face to face with none other than Nadir, the Persian man's face solemn with disappointment.

"There are rumors that a man, a servant, was seen today in Madame Beauvais. The same man who regularly makes bizarre, exorbitant purchases in that area... but never before of _women's _apparel."

Erik said nothing, staring at a fixed point in the distance.

"He apparently spent a great deal of money, insane amounts of money. Jewelry, clothing, shoes..." Nadir pinched the skin between his eyes. "Please tell me, please _swear_ to me that this has nothing to do with one Christine Daae. Her lover is in quite a state of agitation. Apparently she disappeared last night from her dressing room entirely after refusing his dinner invitation. She left behind her _clothing_ in a dressing room found _locked_."

Erik clenched and unclenched his hands, remaining quiet as Nadir continued.

"It was locked from the _inside_, Erik. how do you think that is possible? Such a mystery! And then she just _reappeared_ a few hours after breakfast. Popped back into existence in the hallway, dressed in those same discarded clothes she'd left behind the night prior, refusing to answer any questions, refusing to see her beau."

So she did have a lover, as he'd long suspected. The news that she refused him recently should have warmed his heart, but he still felt the sting.

"Erik, I want you to _tell_ me this isn't true. Tell me that the _Vicomte_ has nothing to worry about. Or that perhaps she has someone else, someone on the side. Someone who does not spend his days pretending to be Paris' most famous haunting!"

"I have an appointment," Erik said softly, but sternly. "If you don't mind, I would rather not receive my guest with you in my company."

Nadir sucked his breath in between his clenched teeth. "This isn't proper," he growled, "you of all people should realize how wrong this is. You know she can't possibly-"

"Can't possibly... _what_?" Erik asked, regarding Nadir with cool hostility. "Can't possibly what, exactly? Would it surprise you to learn that it was _she_ that begged _me_ to bring her? That she _asked_ for my tutelage? That I'm the one who demurred to _her _wishes?"

"Then she is mad," Nadir whispered.

At this, the masked man sighed. "Because what woman would willingly return to _me?_"

"That is not what I said, but she has a future full of promise, a brilliant career on the stage, and a man of noble blood who desires her and who is clearly passionate about caring for her."

"The _Vicomte_, like his brother before him, is a silly man more interested in the girls' skirts than their well-being," he spat back. "Once he beds her he will lose interest. I haven't the inclination to damn her to such a fate. She will not find such disgrace within my walls and under my watchful gaze. So you can tell the _Vicomte_ to find some other member of the cast to bury his... _desires_ in. Christine Daae is in the care of her tutor, and he keeps a most strict curfew."

Nadir shook his head sadly. "Perhaps you're both mad. But mark my words, my dear friend, if anything befalls her, I will find you."

"You," Erik said grimly, "know where I dwell."

The _Vicomte_, of course. He'd noticed how... _enthusiastically_ he'd applauded her efforts. And while it was true the older de Chagny, Phillipe, had an inclination toward bedding half the cast and the majority of the staff, he knew the younger brother was a vestal virgin by comparison. he was the more serious of the two, and therefore the holder of most the family estate. If he were truly willing to risk public shame and loss of his title for a lesser marriage, he was likely convinced he was very much in love.

As loathe as he was to do so, he knew it was a topic that would have to be dealt with. Possibly most severely. But at least now his enemy had a name, a face. That was an answer, the solving of the mystery that had eaten away at his insides.

Now he only awaited Christine.


	13. Chapter 12

In the violent-tinged hues of early dusk, Christine appeared out of the mist, a vision in shimmering green swathed once again in his cloak. It seemed such a familiar, intimate gesture, to wear the article of clothing he'd loaned her. Her breath came in puffs, turned vapor by the chill. She floated on the breeze, a fragile bell arrested in the air. He felt his breath similarly freeze in his chest and wondered idly if that first glimpse of her would always so affect him.

"_Good evening_," she breathed, hint of shiver in her thin shoulders. Her upturned eyes glistened from the cold, expectant and attentive. He felt like a third-rate nickel-plated angel in comparison to her luminance. He offered his arm, ignoring the electric shiver that passed through him when she accepted it.

Taking her with him, wide-eyed and completely willing, was such a strange abstraction. He felt as if his prior wanderings through these passages had been like being lost in the dark. With her beside him, he was walking out of the dark wood he had long dwelt in, seeing the light of the world anew.

The thick stones of the lowest level seemed to glow with unseen light as they made their way back to his home. It was surprising he had never before noticed how perfectly smooth the edges of each brick had been worn, or how the footsteps of the commune soldiers and prisoners had etched a patch in the concrete. He had lost touch with his surroundings, or so it seemed. Everything fading into a grey background until Christine Daae had come in with her blazing brilliance, illuminating everything.

A deft movement of his hand unlocked the complicated mechanics of the main door, the foyer spilling forth a far warmer light than the prior evening. He'd made every careful attempt to make his surroundings seem more hospitable. The living area already had a fire blazing, and her room also had a flickering fire and a newly-placed gas lamp. Her luggage was placed in a corner near the wardrobe; he had felt it better for modesty's sake to allow her to unpack her own things. The packages from Jules were placed according to category in the various drawers, still wrapped in their delicate paper. The dresses hung in the wardrobe, also covered in the tissue paper to keep their form. He deposited Christine neatly in front of her bedroom door, leaving her alone to make herself acquainted with her new accommodations.

"I assume you're hungry," he said distractedly, removing his own cloak and heading back down the hall. "Settle yourself, I'll find something for you to eat."

There wasn't any need to go into the kitchen for exploration. He had already set out the bread and wine that Jules had acquired along with enough fruit, cheese, and sweetbreads to feed a small army. Instead he headed directly into his private quarters, in the rear of the house, closing the door behind him with shaky fingers and making for the bathroom basin. The cold water slipped through his fingers. He cupped his hands and raised them, feeling his cheeks still burning as he rubbed distractedly at his face. The mask back in place, he straightened the lines of his sleeves, checking each collar carefully, and attempted to resume his unaffected poise.

Her dinner was laid at the dining table, plates and utensils all conforming to unseen geometric lines. Perfect.

The door to her bedroom was still ajar, which startled him momentarily. He'd expected her to shut herself away in privacy, and this unspoken message rang louder than any statement ever could. _I trust you. _The words thrummed within his chest, warmer and more poignant than anything ever spoken before.

Beyond the threshold, Christine Daae stood with her back to him. The doors of the wardrobe were flung open wide, and her delicate fingers hovered over the paper-wrapped dresses hanging inside. She turned then to the drawers, examining each satin-lined interior with the same care. Her own luggage was shoved under the four-poster bed, and he regretted instantly not thinking to simply discard her items entirely. He'd been too afraid to, afraid of tossing out some heirloom item that held priceless emotional value he could never have fathomed.

Her explorations of the room continued, hands passing over the furnishings, the bed. His eyes once again fell on his mother's keepsake box, which she appeared not to have disturbed. Just as well, there would be time for such things, after all.

Then she noticed him, her exuberant dance around the room halted as her gaze met his.

"_Thank you… for everything. This is far more_…" she paused, her voice grown thick with emotion. It nearly surprised Erik how much this affected him, for even as she stirred the same earthly feeling in him no matter what she said, the words she spoke now stirred even deeper emotion. "_Far more than I expected. It's wonderful, everything is so… perfect_."

He nodded brusquely, not trusting himself to speak.

They'd barely exchanged a word on the way here, all the long winding corridors held nothing but the memory of the breathless silence as they passed. He'd been at turmoil inside, tossed to and fro on a sea of doubt, questioning his intentions, questioning her motivations. Now, seeing her ruddy-cheeked and exuding grateful happiness, he no longer regretted the decision to bring her here, to allow her into his most private of sanctuaries. He no longer regretted revealing himself to be nothing more than a mortal, for such a vulnerable unveiling was worth the repercussion, if it resulted in moments like these - in moments where he could know the feeling of having her stare at him in such a way. Every pore radiated gratitude, appreciation, contentment.

No woman had ever looked at him thusly before.

_I have loved you from the first moment I saw you, Christine Daae. _The words, so trite and so hopelessly contrived, were nonetheless true. But they remained unspoken, instead his lips produced a reserved, "Your dinner is growing cold. After you eat, I had hoped you'd join me in the parlor."

Erik waited impatiently in the parlor, sitting in his high-backed chair and repeatedly pouring himself - then thinking better of it and pouring back - a glass of brandy. On one hand he wished something would steady his nerves, and on the other he didn't want any chemical means loosening his tongue, or lowering his inhibition. Finally, after a great deal of inner argument, he decided on one glass and gulped it down eagerly, thankful for the warm relaxation that spread throughout him after.

She hovered in the doorway just then, enticing and fragile in her simple dress. Erik straightened immediately, turning slightly from her. "The agreement is thus," he said, tracing the line at the top of his brandy glass with a single finger. "You come, you dine. On evenings when you have not had show rehearsal, we practice. On evenings you have had show rehearsal, or performance, we rest your voice. You are allowed a single appertif, and a cup of warm tea with lemon and honey, to protect your cords. We are allowed a few hours of leisure before bed, for your sleep is very important too. So during this time, you may choose how to spend those hours. You may read, you may tell me things as you wish, or you may ask of me questions." Erik looked fixedly at her. "Three questions an evening. If they are not conducive to much conversation, I shall end with a story, if you'd like. Does this meet with your satisfaction?"

He turned his attention to the sofa, "Make yourself comfortable, I'll prepare something for you to drink, and take care of the remains of dinner." With that, he left her alone with her thoughts and the decidedly noticeable absence of the cat.


	14. Chapter 13

The plates were stacked neatly on one end of the table, crumbs swept up and napkin folded. She'd taken care of cleaning up after herself, a gesture she'd likely done without a second thought and again his heart reached out to the girl. She'd likely had no one to take care of her since she'd lost her father, no one looking after her basic needs, let alone her whims. Through his mind passed the years he could count back to the date of her birth. Back when he'd been just a child himself, a child who quickly learned to strike out on his own. All the money he'd earned and spent frivolously all that time. Just a bit of that money could have elevated her to a better life. He knew she'd been raised an orphan, had garnered that much in his endless following of her, of the things she prayed for when she thought she was quite alone, and the giggles of those obnoxious chorus girls who so loved gossip. When he thought of her, lonely and sequestered away like a forgotten doll, it filled him with overwhelming sadness.

In all his long years he'd never felt the particular pull of one place over another, one person over another. Not like his compatriots - enemy and wary friend alike. They'd all settled in to their very settled ways, took a wife they found pleasing enough and lived out their days with complacency if not happiness. Raised children, shuttled items from one home to the next, laid down the roots and watched them grow without ever wondering again where their wanderings might lead. Through these photographic lives he'd slipped like a ghost, never tarrying long enough to leave his vulgar stain on the film. Even now, in what he had longed considered his last dwelling, he'd not given himself the trappings of comfort so much as the means with which to survive with as little contact with the outside world as humanly possible. _Home_ and _family_ were words that held such little meaning, fleeting tricks of the tongue to prescribe importance to otherwise meaningless places, connections. Why now did he feel most keenly a need to comfort her with the familiar? A desire to keep her from emotional shock or turmoil?

Returning to the parlor, Erik placed a cup on the table before her before crossing to remove a piece of crystal from the cabinet. Into that he poured a small amount of cognac, warming and soothing. He assumed she would need help sleeping, after all.

"_I… rather enjoy stories, tales of old. My father… used to tell me stories when I was a young girl, before he… died from consumption."_ Christine's voice was barely a whisper behind him. So that was what had taken her father. Although she often whispered prayers to the fallen man, he'd never gleaned what particular malady had finally ferried him away. Such an awful disease for a child to experience, seeing a loved one wracked with the coughing, the spots of blood from the lungs on white pillowcases. If that was what provided her with comfort, he was more than capable. A sense of relief overtook him. Tales of old were a particular specialty, and he knew more than just those enclosed in the leather-bound books that lined these walls. He knew stories far older, and less widely known.

"_This is why when I first heard your voice, I thought you were an angel. He always spoke of the angel of music…" _Just as quickly as her request had soothed him, these words tore him to the quick. Yes, he knew what she had believed him to be. Yes, he knew why she prayed so desperately for such a divine creature to enter her life. And yes, he was the charlatan who had shoved his way in instead, manipulating and goading her into believing he was sent from the very heavens above, all while his thoughts and intentions alone were enough to condemn him to hell for all eternity. She was such an innocent creature, he could see that now as he stared through her thick lashes to the wide shining pools that lay behind. She would never understand the whys and wherefores of what he had done, could never truly grasp the depth of what he would stoop to in order to satisfy that lurking tumor of desire he felt since first hearing her voice.

No, Christine Daae, pry as she might, would never know the extent of why he brought her here. She would never learn of the hours he spent watching her before making her aware of his presence. She would never know the corruptions he dreamed, spurred by a smile, the flash of bare arm in the dark, her perfume, her breath.

_Oh, Christine. How perfect and simple our love could have been, were I but any other man. If I had simply been a plain-faced composer, average in talent but even in feature, now you could rest your head upon my shoulder and tell me your fears in the dark. I could have offered you a simple house and the boundless limits of my love, you could have acquiesced shyly and filled the empty rooms of my humble abode with the freshly-scrubbed faces of children, perfect and smooth-skinned and living testaments to the raptures we'd known together._

He loved her so horribly, which was such an imperfect, inappropriate word. For the love itself wasn't horrible, _he_ was the true horror and the only horror in it. Even when the years had removed her from his presence, she would still hover in soft-focus memory, golden and lovely in her gilded frame. From the first moment he'd spent with her, he'd felt as if the fortress that his heart had become now nothing more than snow existing under a thin membrane. She drew ever closer to him, through time and patience, and her crimson heat now threatened to melt it completely. No, this love he had for her was not horrible, but it most certainly was pathetic. He knew that even now. That these shivering dreams and fantasies he held - childish lust and wanton yearning - would never pass muster in the cold and surgical light of time immemorial, once it had been splayed out, wriggling and pinned for critical observation. Pathetic because it was futile, because it was truly hopeless, and because he knew that the insatiable fire that demanded he possess her completely would sooner engulf him than cause him to act. For no matter how much he insistently desired her, he would instead, with the most fervent of force and foresight, prevent himself from robbing her of her purity. The man who had once stopped at nothing to conquer and lay claim to anything within the focus of his desire instead would shut himself away night after night while she demurely shivered in the room adjacent. Never giving in to any of his baser desires. He would live like a chaste monk, distant and cold to keep her intact.

Pathetic because, although his very being clamored for him to end this burning torment, he could never put his own needs above her innocence.

She looked at him now, tinge of Boticellian pink, raw rose lips and muted blush, the memory of her father turning her into this blurred inflamation of tender features and blinked back tears.

"_Since you are not an angel, who are you?"_

He was unable to keep from laughing softly. Yes, it was a question. A single question, and by all definitions a simple question. She had no reason to know how very complicated a response it would require.

The log on top of the fire broke in two, sending up a shower of sparks that momentarily caught his attention. He resumed his lazy tracing of the rim of his glass before speaking.

"I'm... I'm no one of particular consequence, really," he said distantly, as if recalling from memory the correct means of defining who he was. "I'm a Frenchman, I was born not far from where we now sit. Boscherville, a pleasant and well-cared for community, if not exactly the most worldly of villages. When I was young, much younger than you are now, I began... traveling... around. I was an apprentice, of sorts. My _father_," the phrase came out strangely choked, "was a mason. Which is how I ended up here now. I helped in the construction of this building, you know."

He sensed her waiting, expectant and impatient, and sighed before continuing, "There is, of course, much more to it than that." His voice dropped to a whisper, "Much, _much_ more. I suppose you already assumed. But that is a complicated and sad story, and will be better suited for another time. A pretty head such as yours shouldn't be filled with such melancholy remembrances."

Christine nodded slightly, her mouth set in a firm line. "_I... is it... does that have something to do with,_" her fingers fluttered in his direction, "_with the mask?_"

Erik didn't answer. He swirled the dark fluid in his glass and looked back at her. "May I ask something of you?"

"_You may ask anything of me, and I will gladly oblige." _Christine sat up straighter, obedient to a fault, even after the illusion of his heavenly aura had been disturbed.

Another log split apart, sending a crimson shower of sparks and smoke that he found mesmerizing. His fingers continued their languid exploration of the glass as he carefully considered her words, finding once again that the intoned meaning behind them raised gooseflesh on his forearms, try as he might to not let them affect him so profoundly.

He didn't want to ask, not now, not ever. It was a question he'd quite frankly much rather avoid, something he thought he was likely better off never knowing the answer to. As if giving the question form would somehow make the fear more true, more real in the private quiet of his living room. Even uttering the name aloud seemed a sacrilege, allowing _him_ to interfere, now that she was safely ensconced within these walls.

_He_ didn't belong here. _He_ could remain in the floors above, grow old in the light, traipse about in the world outside and rot there, for all Erik cared.

However, be that as it may, the question still gnawed within. Some dark and terrible evil, eating away at him. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.

"When I was young, still green and innocent in that delightful way most adolescents are," Erik said slowly, never taking his eyes off the fire, "I was apprenticed to a master mason. An Italian, a man who loved the stone as if it were his own body and soul and could therefore create from it. Beautiful forms and sweeping architectures that stirred the soul in a way only true art can. I was proud to be taken into his home, into his tutelage. It was undoubtedly the best year of my life."

Erik stopped, wincing slightly. The memory _hurt_, still caused pain even after all of these years. The rooftop garden, Giovanni's arthritic hand on his shoulder as they walked. It was the closest he'd ever come to having a father. All ripped away, all stolen.

"He had a daughter," the words were quiet. "She came back into his home while I was still a guest there. She was very young, and although we shared the same number of years, she seemed infinitely younger than I. And she was..." he sighed again, "she was a silly thing. All frilled dresses and fanciful thoughts. Rudely and impudently pushing herself where she didn't belong." Although the words themselves were harsh, his tone remained one of sad longing, as if he somehow _missed _that rude impudence.

"Her name was _Luciana_," the name spoken reverently, full of awe. "And she was very lovely. I, in my own inept and bumbling way, grew fond of her, although I would never dare to speak it aloud, and she was simply too immature to comprehend. But I assume that is part of the process, is it not? That first, fleeting young love. Better it exists and is dismissed, even if tragically, than to linger and haunt a person. Better to be snuffed out than to light anew and disastrously destroy a future."

Erik finished the amber colored fluid in his glass, returning it to the table beside him in one movement.

"Do you love him, Christine?" His eyes met hers as he fought to mask the rising fear and desperation from betraying him in either voice or gesture. She looked startled, confused, and he loathed himself for having to speak the betrayer's name aloud here in the quiet reverie of _their_ evening.

"The Vicomte. I believe you call him _Raoul_. Oh, do not look so afraid, there is very little that goes on within this building without my notice," he leaned back into his seat, trying to quell the thunder of his heart.

Her chin quivered and she looked away. Erik's heart sank. That moment of hesitation told him everything he needed to know, his worst fears confirmed. "I believe," he said stiffly, rising to his feet, "that is enough for tonight. I'll have to bid you good evening and hope your rest is... restful."

Upon reaching the doorway, he heard her speak at last, her voice wavering, but still defiant.

"_You have your secrets, Monsieur. I have mine._"

He felt it then, the subtle shift in the power balance. The dynamic of this twisted affair was changing, and he didn't know if he was quite prepared.

"Get some rest," he said quietly, leaving her alone in the flickering firelight.

Sleep came fitfully that night, finally delivering its blissful darkness in an armchair where Erik had sat awake and replayed their conversation twice over. Thoughts of responses he should have made, cleverer responses, responses that didn't betray so nakedly his insecurities gave way to greyscale dreams of oceanscapes beneath stone white cliffs. Abstract thoughts without any clear deeper meaning. Erik turned slightly away from the table lamp in his sleep, the emotional exhaustion of what had transpired dampening his senses, allowing some measure of vulnerability. He slept through the quiet click of the bedroom door. He dreamed through Sasha's hasty leap from the chair adjacent. He remained blissfully unaware of the lurking presence of Christine Daae until she had drawn too close for comfort. Hazily he came to his sense a moment too late, as the cool pressure of her fingertips pried the lower edge of his mask from where it rested on his cheek.

Then there was no sensation beyond blinding white-hot rage and the sounds of her sobbing screams before the world went blank.


	15. Chapter 14

_He stood beside a moonlit pool. It was late, quite late at night. Silent as a shadow, he crept to the edge of the water and peered over the edge at himself. The wind picked up, sending ripples across the smooth glassy surface. He cursed quietly, the adult words sounding borderline ridiculous in his child's voice. The wind quieted, the water stilled._

_No mirrors existed in the home on Rue Montrage. He suspected his mother kept one in her locked dresser, but try as he may he could not catch her with it. There existed a single photograph of his father, with the glass carefully removed from the frame. No way to know if he favored the strong, handsome man in the suit._

_In the water beneath him, the pale oval of his face began to come into focus. He narrowed his eyes, not sure why his features were so hard to make out. Why would the water lie? This was not the face of a boy, this was the face..._

_His mother came upon him then, pulling him up violently by the shoulder. He'd had bruises in the shape of her fingertips for three days after that night. Her eyes were cruel and angry when he turned, then he saw the look of revulsion and mild nausea that had long been familiar return. She shuddered visibly and turned away._

_"Put it back on." Her words a harsh icy sob._

_That was the moment he'd realized it wasn't him she hated. It wasn't something he'd done, or something he'd said. It was his face. Whatever distortion he'd blamed on the water was reality._

_He was a monster._

The room came into focus slowly, his vision pulsing. Each pulse brought a bit of reality back. First the view of the fireplace, his chair turned on end. A glass lay in pieces on the hearth. Then the awareness of the rug beneath him. He was on the floor. He turned and blinked blearily at the ceiling, then craned his neck back to see a bookcase destroyed. Splintered wood and unbound books in a pile. He pushed onto his side, up into a sitting position. The room was cold and his blood was pounding unnaturally in his temple. The fire had gone out hours ago. Near the doorway, a torn sheet from his bed, more splintered wood, and a small white shape...

_His mask._

Pieces of what transpired float into a more complete picture. He remembers reading, settled into an armchair. The words on the page were meaningless strings of letters, for his thoughts had been only of Christine. At some point, he drifted off into that perfect, deep sleep that comes so rarely. Something awoke him, the sensation of cool air on skin that seldom went uncovered, always an unnerving and exhilarating feeling. Then the sharp intake of breath, the wordless sob, the crash of an upset glass onto brick as she backed against the mantle.

Her eyes. Wide, disbelieving, velvet dark puddles threatening to run over. Fear dwelled in those eyes. Fear he was accustomed to. Fear could be dealt with. The pity that rushed onto her face immediately after, however... that was beyond the pale. She would NOT pity him. He felt the rage swell within as he drew to his full height, towering over her petite frame. The menacing effect was not lost on Christine, she began to shrink away and let fear again override her emotions, clutching her hands protectively in front of her and pushing her body along the wall, toward the door.

Erik remembered knocking over the bookcase when he grabbed for her. He remembered the way she'd fled from him, how he'd stood between her and the door. The frightened animal noises she made as she leaped onto his bed. The way she shook her head slowly as he pulled the sheets and blankets from her grasp. She'd looked so very frightened and helpless, mouthing "no," whispering "please." Until that moment, Erik had not truly been certain of what he planned to do once he caught her. The wild expression on her face meant she had assumed the absolute worst. It was that look that stopped him. Knowing that he had become the thing he loathed most in men.

Once, years before, he'd found himself employed by a gypsy circus. He was young and somewhat of a target, something to be teased and bullied. He'd chanced upon one of the young dancing girls on a moonless night. Her name was Danya. She was lovely and lithe when dancing. Now she was a messy pile of skirts and tears. Danya had fallen and twisted her ankle. When Erik offered to help, she'd pulled away, curled into a ball, sobbed and screamed that she knew what he was trying to do.

_Rape_. The word was not unknown to him. And although other men in the encampment had been known to take what they wanted, even when refused, Erik could not consider himself among them. No woman had ever come to him willingly, and he'd be damned if he would become the kind of man who took what was never offered. It took a certain sort of darkness to bring a man to such acts. Women were frequently cruel to a man like Erik, but it did not justify his being such a vile monster.

The look in Christina's eyes echoed Danya's. She had thought him capable of an act so heinous. It was enough to pause his directionless rage. He'd collapsed to the floor beside the bed, panting heavily.

"Get out."

Christine, to her credit, didn't hesitate to follow his order. She fled from the room, bare feet padding down the hallway. A slammed door. A strangled scream. And his damned heart wouldn't slow. It pounded in his chest like a bass drum, thundering in his ears, gripping him with a simultaneous surge of energy and a woozy sensation that felt as if he were going to faint.

Erik wasn't sure when the darkness had finally taken him. He flexed his fingers now, feeling the strange tingle in his left arm. A bit painful, but it would heal. He staggered to his feet and caught a glimpse of the clock.

Nine hours. He'd been unconscious for nearly nine hours. Twice as long as he usually slept. He limped across the room to where his mask had fallen. The room could be sorted out later. For now, he had to sort out Christine.


	16. Chapter 15

_Get out._

Two words, wrapped in such vehemence, such loathing. Christine had fled the room without a second thought, tearing down the hallway and slamming her bedroom door. The flimsy lock - an item installed as a show of faith, proof that she could _trust _him, that he would give her all the peace and privacy she required - seemed hardly adequate now. In desperation she'd attempted to drag the heavy dresser in front of the door, to act as barrier, and had only succeeded in wounding herself, reducing her to childish tears and a threatening feeling that she was about to start screaming. She did scream, but found it only made the growing panicky feeling worse, hearing her own cry of horror echo off the thick walls of his underground prison.

Christine had long thought the mask was to protect his identity. She had assumed there would be a moment when he would remove it, show her his face, let her come to the slow recognition. She had fervently believed his would some face from the crowd perhaps, someone she had encountered accidentally, never realizing _he_ was the one who had been privately grooming her for her ascension. She would smile, she would blush and lower her eyes. He would take her chin in his hands and raise her face to his and say something charming, something that would reveal why he had felt the need to remain so cold, so aloof, so mysterious. _"Can't you see? It was me all along?" _Her hidden benefactor, her knight in waiting. He would be a gentleman, a true angel among men.

With a single thoughtless gesture she had realized just how immature, how _wrong_ that fantasy had been. For all her attempts to unravel the mystery of the mask, she had never thought… how could she? What lay beneath was _unthinkable_.

She'd followed him blindly, given him her voice, her trust, her mind. And she'd allowed him to lead her, like a sacrificial lamb, into this tomb below the earth. Into this hell. This hell where she was now trapped with a _monster_.

Even if Christine wanted to leave, she wouldn't know where to find a door.

Christine Daae, alone and afraid, wrapped herself in her ivory coverlet and sat supplicant in the center of the floor. Kneeling, seated on her heels, and staring blankly at the carpet before her was how he found her still, hours later. Her back was to the door when he pushed it open, and he could see the shiver pass through her body as he entered, as if he were an unwelcome chill. Her fingers clutched the blanket at her neck, her eyes wide, staring, red-rimmed and dark-circled, her hair a messy cascade of brunette curls, wild and untamed. She looked for all the world like a pretty porcelain doll, discarded by an impudent child. Beautiful, abandoned, bruised, broken.

Erik was mortal, this much was true, yet he felt he had lived a hundred lives of ordinary men, and none of those lives particularly ordinary at all. He'd built monuments for great kings and the common rabble alike, heard his prowess as a conjurer of delights praised in myriad tongues, seen the sun rise and set in landscapes that seemed painted from the imagination. Long had he considered himself a creator, a dreamer, a scientist and an artist. Now add to that a maestro, a mentor, an angel. Yet, she was the thing that made him feel impotent, unimportant, hobbled. With the question of, "what now?" looming before him, he was tongue-tied and useless. He wanted to provide comfort, solace, to attempt to put together the remaining pieces of this shattered lie he'd built around her.

Instead, all he could manage was a weak whisper.

"Have you eaten?"

The mass of curls shook from side to side. "No." The voice was raw and hollow. "I don't know how to manage your stove."

"Ah," he replied quietly. "I… I could show you."

She sat still and silent, a trembling summit he would never reach.

By sheer will alone he pulled himself from the room.

Basic, functional motions helped. He boiled the water, poured it into a cup. She needed tea. Strong tea. Black, Turkish, with honey and lemon. Perhaps even a dollop of brandy to warm her and help ease her to sleep.

If she could sleep. In this house. With _his face _lurking within its walls.

Erik felt the foreign sensation of tears threaten and hated himself for being so weak. She was a woman, wasn't she? Just a woman. Another woman who found him something to be feared and loathed. Another to see him for what he truly was, not a man but a monster. Something not worth of love or affection or anything but the basest, most primal reactionary of emotions. She wasn't the first to make him feel like a thing. She would likely not be the last.

As if he could fool himself with such platitudes.

He leaned against the tiled basin and collected his thoughts. Whatever had caused the pain deep in his chest had left him a great deal weaker. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally. The emotional turmoil of the past few days had strained him body, mind, and spirit and now with this final cataclysmic explosion he was paying the price. He wondered wryly if this episode heralded the end of his pathetic life, and if that end were looming closer than he thought. Perhaps when he went to bed next it would be for the last time, leaving Christine alone in a prison she was incapable of escaping. Leaving her alone with his decaying corpse to slowly lose what remained of her delicate mind.

A sound from the other room interrupted the thought. He gathered up the cup and slowly made his way into the parlor.

Christine stood near the cold fireplace, still wrapped in her blanket. She stared at the cup in his hand as if she had never seen tea before.

"I thought you might be thirsty," he said, realizing at once that it was both an obvious and unnecessary statement to make.

She sat on the sofa, drawing her feet up onto the cushion and wrapping her coverlet around her bent knees. Erik took that as acquiescence and placed the cup beside her, seating himself across from her, at a safe distance. She did not meet his gaze.

"I'm very cold."

He moved to stand up, "I could start a fire."

She shook her head slowly, fingers playing with the edge of the blanket. One of the nails on her right hand was torn, dried blood smeared on her pale skin.

"You've hurt yourself."

"It doesn't hurt."

"I could get you something."

Again, she shook her head.

"What can I do for you?" he could hear the pleading edge in his voice.

The blanket rustled as her hair swept across it. _No._

"Please, Christine. Let me do something. Please. Tell me what to do."

She turned her head to stare at the teacup.

"I could make you something else, if you don't like it."

A shake of the head. _No._

He turned away then, not able to watch her numb negation of his requests. Perhaps this is the way it was meant to end. He had seen this sort of quiet resignation before.

He knew what came next.

"_I think…"_ Her voice startled him, and Erik's eyes snapped back to find her staring directly at him.

"_I think it is time for us to play the question game." _She sounded distant, and childlike. It was unnerving.

"_And I think tonight I would also like a story."_

I am still not happy with this. It feels weak and clumsy. But it is a means to an end, so I'm posting it.

I want to write the part that comes after it. Please accept this rickety bridge


	17. Chapter 17

The room was silent save the muffled tick of the mantle clock. Christine sat mute, unseeing, her hair a wild electroshock mess of curls framing wide, staring eyes. Her fingers worried the edges of the blanket that enveloped her. Lips parted, she released a shuddery breath. She must be _freezing_, he thought, once again the compulsion to care for her, provide for her, somehow ease her in this tense moment overriding both his senses of propriety and the dreadful thrumming pain that still buzzed through his limbs. Previously, she had denied the need for a fire, but the room grew colder by the moment. They'd be able to see their breath if it became much more clammy.

"You said a name," she stated bluntly before he could choke out a single word.

Erik was startled. "A what?"

Christine stared into the carpet, not meeting Erik's eyes. "You said it in your sleep. I came to the doorway of your room. Hours ago. You… I wanted to know whether or not you were dead. I needed to know if you were dead."

_Needed to know, or hoped? _

"A name. A girl's name. I heard you say it."

"Ah…" he was taken aback, his mind searching for some fragment of dream, some memory that might explain which name he had let loose whilst unconscious. "What was the name?"

She looked up sharply, her eyes narrowing. "Were there so many?" she spat.

For a moment, the girl sounded almost _jealous_. Erik shook his head, rubbed at his temple. He must be more tired than he realized. Not jealous, afraid. She was terrified. And who could blame her, after seeing… after seeing what she saw. Fear was causing the angry outburst, the strange edge in her voice. With dismay he grasped what she must be asking. Of course, she assumed he had _taken_ others. "I won't pretend to know what that accusation is supposed to mean," he said quietly, "but I _can _assure you that I have lived a long life, longer than you might realize. And in the course of that life I have met many people. So if I ask for you to clarify which of the characters in my past made a mental appearance during my…" his fingers waved distractedly in the air, "… _episode_, you will have to forgive me."

Christine lowered her eyes again. "You said it, you said it soft at first, and then it was more, more _urgent_," she swallowed hard, as if the word nauseated her. "You _moaned_. You called to her. It was…" Christine looked as if she might burst into tears. "It was as if… it sounded so desperate."

The quick shift in displayed emotion made Erik uneasy. Perhaps Christine was more damaged than he realized by the prior night's altercation. "Many of my dreams are. Mine was not a life without regret. Sometimes that chooses to manifest itself when I am most vulnerable. I apologize if I frightened you-"

"_Frightened _me?" she cut him off sharply, a strange half laugh, half sob coming from her throat. "After all that had transpired. Here, there, in your room, when I… you think that a name _frightened _me?"

Erik was at a loss. "I don't… if you could just tell me who-" 

"Luciana," Christine's tone had faint tracings of mockery. "The name was Luciana."

He settled back into his chair, his mouth going slack for a moment. _Luciana.. _Dear lord, how many years since he had last thought of her face, let alone her name? Those musical three syllables, how they had once held such meaning, such reverence for him.

"I take it then, this is one of your questions?"

Christine didn't respond, just continued staring at the floor.

"Luciana was… she was a child. Well, as was I. We were children. Together." He became aware of her gaze fixed on him once again. "Is it so hard to imagine me as a child? Wait, don't answer that. Of course it is. One so readily assumes that I was bred in some laboratory, or raised in the forest among wolves or perhaps somewhere otherworldly. Once a girl not much older than you had the audacity to start a rumor that I had sprung from the earth, fully-formed, like some twisted version of a Greek god. I can assure you that my birth and my childhood was not so different from much of society. Not all grow up happy and loved, but most do grow up regardless.

"Not to say my childhood was without any happiness. I had moments of unadulterated joy. I had days of contentment. One of the most content times I ever lived was in a small villa in Italy, with a man who was the closest thing I've ever known to a father. He is the reason this building exists, you see. Without his tutelage, I might never have risen to the level of craftsman I am today."

"But," she said hesitantly, "who was Luciana?"

"The man I spoke of. He had four daughters. They were not at his house when I arrived, having married in the case of the eldest three and been sent off to school in the case of the youngest. She, however, came home. As children often do."

"Luciana?"

Erik nodded. "She was… to put it plainly, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

Christine shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"I'm sorry, are you cold? Can I do something?"

"I am fine," she said coolly.

Erik took a breath, not sure what to make of the ever-shifting moods of Christine Daae. "Luciana was lovely," he paused as Christine once again huffed and shifted on the cushion, "she was also quite spoiled. Used to having her father's undivided attention. I was clearly an unwelcome guest."

"She was cruel to you."

"Cruel doesn't begin to explain. She dogged my steps, crowded my days, and haunted my nights. I couldn't be free of her for a moment. Asking me questions, poking fun at my writings, following me everywhere I went. She treated my room as if it were her own, barging in whenever she pleased."

Christine released a puff of air sharply. "She _cared _for you."

"No, I don't believe so," he dismissed the thought, "she cared to see me leave, so that she could once again have her father to herself."

"Did you, did you ever touch her?"

The question stung. In his mind, he saw Luciana backing away, clear as the day it happened. He saw her eyes filled with horror as she avoided his outstretched hand, backing further and further, until….

"Did you? Did you kiss her?"

_Kiss her? _"No," he said incredulously. "Luciana despised me. She made the very purpose of her existence to cause me torment. In fact-" he stopped short.

"What? In fact what?"

There had been an evening, an evening toward the end of their strange, twisted dance of avoidance and chase. She had come into his room in the dead of night. There wasn't a moon that night, the room was pitch black when she shoved the door open and closed it quickly behind her. He'd fumbled for his mask as she made her way swiftly across the room, securing it into place as Luciana's eager hands found his shoulders. She'd pushed so _close_ to him, closer than anyone had ever dared come to him before. Her breath smelled of warm peppermint and clove tea as she whispered into his half-parted lips.

_It's late. No one knows I've come._

Pressed against him, wearing only the thin cotton stuff of her nightgown, he'd felt his body involuntarily react. The close quarters, his own rebellious blood, and her warm breath threatened to force him to cross a line he swore he'd never even approach. Erik, feeling every bit a trapped animal, shoved her away.

She'd fallen backwards, tripped and hit her elbow on his table. He could hear the tears in her voice as she quietly cursed him. Then, quick as she came into the room, she was gone. He came to realize it was another of her cruel tortures. She wasn't the first to tease him in that way, nor would she be the last.

"Erik?"

"No," he said softly. "No, I never touched her. Not like that."

"And what happened to Luciana? Married off like her sisters?"

For a moment Erik had that vision. Luciana, older, fuller of face and body, radiant and flushed in bridal ivory beneath a warm Tuscan sun. Happy and alive as he'd wished, not cold and dead and crumpled as he'd seen.

"No," his voice was a hoarse whisper. "No, I'm afraid she died while still quite young."

"Illness?"

"An accident."

"One of _your_ accidents?"

Erik rose to his feet without a thought, ignoring the way his joints screamed in agony, dismissing the pounding in his head. Christine recoiled instinctively, curling into a corner of the couch, trying to make herself small. Her reaction caused a pang of guilt to pass through him.

"I think that is quite enough for tonight, if you don't mind, Mademoiselle Daae."

He reached the arched doorway before her voice followed him. "The accident. The accident that killed Luciana. Is it also what caused… is that how?"

He laughed harshly. "No. The only accident to befall my face was the accident of birth. I haven't any reason why it was deigned I should look like this."

"And the girl who started the rumor of your godly birth. Was she also in Italy?"

"No. But she is a story for another time perhaps."

The answer seemed to satisfy her. Christine sat up a little straighter. "I should at least like to hear my story," she said. "I feel you at least owe me that much.


	18. Update

A note to my readers:

I have not abandoned this story. I was moving, and now that I'm settled I'm working on the next chapter once again. It's a long one, and a bit labor-intensive to write. Please bear with me.

Your reviews are much appreciated, by the way. Thank you to everyone who has written.


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